I Could Make You Care
by Tobias Corvinus
Summary: Veronica Santangelo was just enjoying a cold drink at Trading Station 188 when a stranger caught her eye. Cryptic summary, good story. Rated T, may change.
1. The Stranger With a Big Iron

She remembers the first time she saw the Courier. She was at the 188 Trading Station. She was standing at the wooden crate that served as a bar, watching all the dusty beaten down travelers walking by, just trying to find a reason to delay another second before taking the long trek back to the bunker. So she rationed the sips of the Sunset Sarsaparilla and took her time with the tough brownish substance the cook had called a steak. So she was there when the Courier showed up. First sight was of him striding resolutely through the dust, and that's what caught her eye. The man walked with a purpose, and that was a rarity in these days. Most people were so worn down with living in such a harsh world; it was all they could do to lift one foot after the other. They'd lost their purpose, but he hadn't.

So she decided to introduce herself because that's just how Veronica was. She was a magpie, if she saw something shiny, something interesting; she just had to find out more. Plus, it would give her another excuse to delay returning to the Brotherhood. Veronica slapped some caps down on the wooden crate and walked towards the stranger, already wondering how she was going to weasel his life story from him. Which was why she wasn't paying attention to the mercenary behind her until he grabbed her ass.

"Hey shweetheart, I don shink I've sheen you around here." He had too many "shs" in his words, and his breath stank of lukewarm beer.

"Oh that's probably because you're so wasted, you couldn't see your own mother if she was right in front of you." Veronica muttered.

The man was drunk, but apparently not so drunk that he couldn't tell the girl with the "smokin hot ass" had just insulted him. So he grabbed her hand, her left hand, which was his first mistake.

"I shud teash you some mannersh." He slurred, stepping close, no doubt trying to intimidate her with how big and manly he was.

She smiled brightly at him, "You can try, but just so you know, I'm a bit hard to teach." That's when she hit him with her right hand, the one encased in the bulky power fist. His nose sprayed a lovely red and the drunken merc fell flat on his back. Oh men, they were so fragile. Of course, she thought, as the other mercs stood up and surrounded her, they always traveled in packs.

"Stupid bitch," one snarled, "you're gonna pay for that." She sighed in annoyance because now she was going to have to beat the crap out of all of them, and that would make a scene, and then she would have to stay away for a month or four until it all died down.

But she wasn't going to back down now, not like she could have if she wanted to. So she settled into a fighter's stance, arms loose at her side, and sneered "Make me."

They took that as their cue to rush her. And as they stumbled towards her, half drunk, Veronica just had to smile.

She skipped to her right, lashing out with her power fist in a low blow to the kidney of a balding merc. Then she was clear of the circle of men now down to five and as they tried to figure out what had just happened, she pirouetted like a dancer and struck another merc in the back. Two down, four to go. Two of the thugs rushed her, coming at either side. She waited until the last moment, and then stepped backwards and the stupid men ran into each other and went down in a tangle of limbs. While they were down, Veronica gave them both a swift kick to the head, just a friendly little tip to stay down. The last two were the most somber, and they'd taken the time to arm themselves. The bigger one was all muscle and swung a sledgehammer easily with one hand, he was also wearing metal armor. She was more worried about the second one. He wore light leathers and he was short, all wiry muscle, but he held the pitted combat knife in his hand like he'd been born with it.

"That was a dumb move, bitch." The knife fighter said softly, "Benny was just being a drunk idiot, but now we're going to have to teach you a lesson."

"Bring it," she said, but now it was looking like a fair fight, and Veronica hated fair fights. They were so easy to lose.

The two mercenaries worked together, rushing her from different angles. She had to dodge a hammer blow that would have taken her head off, and then she had to swerve to avoid the knife that darted in after the hammer. Her power fist slammed into Hammer Man's chest, but the heavily reinforced metal only dented a little. He laughed and backhanded her hard on the face, and she tasted blood in her mouth. As she reeled off balance, Knife Man came in for the kill. In a frozen instant, she watched the knife blade glinting in the sunlight as it rushed towards her throat.

A shot cracked the air and suddenly Knife Man was screaming on the ground, holding his bloody knife hand with his good one. She looked up and saw the stranger, Mr. Purpose, standing as solid as a statue, holding a smoking nine milliliter in a marksman's grip. Eyes expressionless, he walked towards them and stopped in front of Veronica.

"Stay out of this stranger," Hammer Man snarled.

Stranger didn't say a thing, he just squared his shoulders and stared calmly up at the human giant. Later she would laugh and say it was just his silent stubbornness, but at the moment, he was an immovable machine that would crush Hammer if the larger man tried anything as foolish as attacking him.

"You should take care of your friend," he said finally, ice blue eyes staring unwavering into Hammer's, "he seems to have hurt his hand."

"…bastard…" Knife Man whimpered. Hammer Man gritted his jaw and glared down at the smaller man, face red, breathing heavily, hands creaking on the sledgehammer's wooden grip. Stranger didn't move, he just kept staring, and in the end, it was Hammer Man who turned away first.

"This isn't over, Stranger." He growled.

"Yes it is," The Stranger said.

Hammer Man spat on the ground, but he and the rest of the mercs trudged off, two stopping to help the injured Knife Man to his feet. The stranger gave them a last dismissive glance and then he turned towards her.

"Miss." He acknowledged, then he turned and walked away.

Veronica blinked, and then the magpie kicked in again and she was stumbling to her feet. "Hey!" she paused to spit out some bloody saliva, "Hey, wait!" She caught up to him just past the overpass, "Hey, where you headed?"

"The Strip." He said curtly, feet still striding.

"Why?" She asked, matching his pace, "Got some caps burning a hole in your pocket?"

"I'm trying to find some answers." He said in his Leave-me-alone voice.

"Ooh, that's cryptic." She said in her I-don't-think-so voice.

"Why do you care?" He asked.

"I'm just naturally curious," she said sweetly, "it's a gift of mine. So, where'd you come from?"

"The grave." He muttered.

"Okay, I changed my mind, _that_ was cryptic." Although that might explain the don't-mess-with-me attitude he seemed to exhibit, "Although it would explain the smell."

"If I offend you so much, maybe you should stop following me." He growled.

"No, I'll just have to endure and be strong." She said in a suffering voice, "My burden as an adventurer."

"I don't have a choice in this matter, do I?" He asked finally.

She smiled, "Nope."

"Hypothetically," he said coldly, "If I did have a choice, why would I let you tag along?"

"Um…I'm really good at punching things." She answered.

He finally looked at her, a quick glance that wasn't quick enough to hide the amusement in his light blue eyes, "And you're really good at starting fights."

"Hey, they were asking for it!" she protested, "My butt is off limits to the male gender."

He raised an eyebrow, and she blushed, "Look, I'm good at punching, you're good at shooting, it's a match made in heaven!"

"I'm going to regret this," he muttered.

"Probably," she agreed, "I'm Veronica, what's yours?"

"Courier."

"Courier?" She wrinkled her nose, "Not very flashy is it? How about the Mysterious Stranger?"

"No."

"Nuclear Gunslinger?"

"No."

"The Amazing Bob?"

He smirked, "Courier."

"Fine." She grumbled, "Courier it is."

Courier smiled, and Veronica smiled too. Whatever happened next, she was sure of one thing. It would be a long time before she returned to Hidden Valley.


	2. Raiders in the Woodworks

**A/N: Sorry for the short chapter but I just wanted to get this scene out and it's time for me to hit the sack. Let me know if you think the Courier/Veronica relation is moving too fast. Thanks and enjoy the story!**

"Wow," Veronica stared, "It's so…"

"Wrecked?" The Courier asked dryly.

The two were at the top of a hill staring down at the ruins of Vegas. People had said the bombs from long ago hadn't touched this city. Either way, it still looked like a warzone. Cracked buildings centuries old crowded side by side with ramshackle huts of rusted metal plates. The roads were fissured into mosaics of concrete and scraggly weeds. Blood and bullet holes, some old, most new riddled the structures and rusted rebar protruded from rubble like ancient spears. In the middle of all the wreckage rose a tower untouched by guns or bombs, glittering with a thousand lights as the setting sun struck the contours of the structure.

"The Lucky 38 Casino," The Courier mused, "Nothing says I'm-better-than-you like a huge tower right in the middle of a ruined city."

"Well I think it's pretty." The Scribe defended, "All those lights, it's like a Christmas tree."

He blinked "A what tree?"

"A Christmas tree, it was a big tree that people cut down and put in their homes. Then they decorated it with lights and stuff. People would go out and have snow ball fights, build snowmen, go door-to-door singing songs, have hot chocolate…it was nice."

Courier raised an eyebrow, "Ah, I get it. All this happened back when cows had one head, scorpions could be squashed under a boot, and wasps weren't the size of men-"

"Do me a favor; go back to being Mr. Cryptic."

"You can't please anyone these days."

* * *

Two-Shot wasn't his real name. His real name was Jerry, and that was a closely guarded secret. He'd been killing, raping, and looting for over ten years now, and in those ten years he had realized that only the boss got rich. So Jerry had staged a coup and overthrown the older boss. In other words, he emptied both barrels of a shotgun into his sleeping boss's back, hence the name Two-Shot. He'd even changed the name of the gang now they were Two-Shot's Raiders, although everyone just called them Two-Shot's Rejects.

Now there's little good that can be said of Two-Shot, but what brains he had, he used. With the NCR on one side and the Fiends on the other, Two-Shot's raiders were always on the move, ransacking a target and moving on while the bodies were still warm. They'd set up ambushes in the Vegas ruins on a good day, they got at least one or two scores.

This wasn't a good day.

Two-Shot peered through the blown out window of an apartment. "Anything?" He asked.

Twitch grunted and shook his head.

The Raider boss scowled and slapped away a stinging fly. They'd been camped in the apartment complex for most of the day with little to show for it. Two caravans, loaded with weapons, had come by, but both times they'd been heavily guarded by Van Graff thugs and as much as the thought of getting some high-powered ordinance made Two-Shot's mouth water, he knew better than to go up against psychos with energy weapons.

"Boss, I could really use a fix." Twitch whispered.

Two-Shot glanced at him cautiously. Twitch was an ex-Fiend and heavily addicted chem. user but he had his own sniper rifle, a real one, not some hunting rifle crap, so Two-Shot had let him stay. As long as the Jet was flowing, Twitch could shoot the wings off a horsefly. Unfortunately, once the drugs wore off, Twitch had a nasty habit of…twitching. Apparently one time during an ambush, he'd twitched and instead of blowing the brains out of a caravan guard, he'd shot the Fiend boss leading the ambush.

"I told you, we're all out." Two-Shot hissed.

"Two-Shot!" Their spotter lifted his head and passed the Raider a pair of binoculars, "Southeast, by the burned out gas station."

Two-Shot raised the binoculars and the distant structure suddenly zoomed in. There were two travelers trudging down the street, the man had on some sort of heavy coat and the woman was wearing a robe of all things. It wasn't the same as knocking over a Crimson Caravan but the woman looked young and Two-Shot hadn't had any action for weeks.

"Okay, Twitch, wait until they come closer and then we'll jump them-"

Twitch twitched.

The boom of the sniper rifle cracked across the ruins.

And the woman fell to the ground.

* * *

One second he'd been talking to the Scribe. The next, there'd been a gunshot and Veronica was on the road and an ugly red stain was growing on her side. The Courier reacted instinctively, grabbing Veronica and hauling the lighter woman off the road and into a ditch. A second gunshot and the pavement by his hand exploded in lumps. Two thoughts leaped out in the blurring rush of adrenaline and fear.

_Sniper, northwest corner._

_She's bleeding._

The adrenaline still pounded but the fear had melted away, replaced by an almost total Zen of complete emptiness, no emotions, no worries.

As calmly as if he was taking a stroll in the park, the Courier grabbed Veronica and hauled her into the gas station. He didn't flinch when a third round shattered the glass by his head, he didn't react when a fourth and fifth slammed into the wooden door he'd just swung shut.

The Zen faded away a little when he finally looked down and saw Veronica, but the Courier stubbornly pushed aside all emotion.

"Santangelo," he said briskly, "talk to me."

"It hurts…" she mumbled. He took out a pair of scissors and cut the robe and shirt she was wearing underneath. Veronica could hear him exhale quietly.

The cool tiles pressed against her back, Veronica stared at the ceiling and in a very small voice asked, "Well Doc? What's your professional opinion?"

Courier gave her a reassuring smile, or rather his lips twitched in what could be called a smile. "I've seen worse bug bites."

"You're not just lying to make me feel better?"

"I never lie about life or death." He said solemnly, "Now be quite while I slap a band aid on you."

The wound wasn't bad, a clean shot that had missed the stomach and any other internal organs. He quickly pulled out a stimpack and slid the needle into the wound. Courier thumbed the plunger on the end of the stimpack sending a cocktail of medicines into the wound. The stimpack would make the blood clot faster and kill whatever bacteria was floating around inside her. Veronica sighed and her body untensed a little as the mild anathestic in the stimpack took effect, "That feels nice." She murmured.

"Don't get too used to it. I'm not going to waste a stimpack on your lazy butt every time you get a scratch." Courier grunted as he bandaged her wound.

"You're all bark, Mr. Cryptic…no bite."

"That's just the morphine talking now." But he took off his heavy coat and tucked it around her. He felt her hand on his arm and she looked up at him with soft brown eyes, "You're a nice man."

And he looked at her with his pale blue eyes and ice ran down her spine.

"No I'm not," he said and kindly patted her on the arm. Then he pulled out his nine millimeter side arm and handed it to her, handle first. "Stay put and if anyone comes in, shoot first and apologize later."

She grinned weakly at him, "And while I'm playing damsel in distress, what are you doing?"

He unslung a small caliber rifle with a stubby silencer on the end. He flipped the cap off the low-light scope and glanced at the sky. Twilight had fallen, it was time to hunt.

"I'm going to go kill our new friends."


	3. Gone Hunting, Come Back Later

**Chapter 3 was supposed to be bigger but at this point this is all I have, so consider it chapter 2 and a 1/2 if you will. I will have the rest of the chapter finished and updated probably by tomorrow (hopefully). Like always, review if you will but most of all enjoy the story! **

* * *

Courier slipped out the gas station through a side window, then, back pressed against the wall, he risked a quick glance. He had an instant's view of a crumbling apartment complex ahead of him. When no bullet came roaring down to blow his head off, the Courier made a dash to the far side of the street. He waited five heartbeats, listening for someone to sound an alert, but the low visibility and luck were with him. He turned and slipped into the emergency exit door of a department store.

Rushing up the fire escape stairs quietly was a little bit more challenging, but he didn't have time to take things slow. Those Raiders wouldn't take long to get to the gas station and if they got inside, things would get nasty real quick. The Courier came out on the fourth floor and found himself in what appeared to be the security office for the department store. He passed between two desks facing a blown out window and got set up. Using his pack as a rest for the rifle he sighted the scope and checked to make sure he had a full clip.

* * *

Two-Shot's ambush had been a nice simple plan. Stake out a well traveled route; stick Raiders in buildings on either side, then when the targets were between the two buildings, cut loose with whatever guns they had while snipers killed the guards. Most times it worked brilliantly and the whole thing was over in five seconds.

Of course most times Twitch was running on a full load of Jet and didn't get anxious and shoot too soon, or hit the wrong target.

But there was a time and a place to beat the crap out of Twitch, and this was neither. Instead he motioned to his Raiders on the street and dragged a sheepish Twitch by the scruff of his neck down to the bombed out lobby. Ten Raiders were waiting for him there; he had another five in the post office building across the street. They were a heavily armed group of killers. Makeshift bandoliers stuffed with ammo criss-crossed their chests and the motley assortment of firearms ranged from shotguns to compact ten millimeter pistols, but all were well maintained and well used.

"Alright kiddos, listen up," Two-Shot glanced at each member of his crew, "Since _someone_ decided to get a little trigger happy ahead of schedule the plan's changed. We've got two travelers holed up in a gas station at the end of this street. The girl's wounded so don't worry about her. As for the guy well let's see…there's one of him and…" he made a big show of counting heads in the room, "Twelve of us plus five across the street equals major overkill. We'll flank the dead meat, some go in the back, some in the front and pump this guy so full of lead they'll use his corpse as radiation shielding."

He saw the hesitant looks on their faces and his blood boiled. Seriously, he had seventeen guys with guns and they were chickening out about maybe taking some fire from one crappy traveler. They'd gotten too used to shooting fish in a barrel with all the caravan ambushes, after this, he was going to have to toughen them up a bit. However, since Two-Shot needed them now, he decided to sweeten the deal.

"I tell you what bozos, the guy that kills the man gets first ride on the girl."

The men cheered and shook their weapons in the air. Oh, he knew how to motivate them alright.

As the other Raiders headed out the double doors, Twitch decided now was a good time to find a spot to hide. He took three steps up the stairs when he heard the unpleasant sound of a shotgun being cocked. With a knot in his stomach Twitch turned to see Two-Shot with his shotgun pointed lazily at the sniper's leg.

"Just where do you think you're going Twitch?"

Twitch frowned, "The roof, to snipe."

Two-Shot grinned and there was nothing pleasant about it. "And miss all the fun? C'mon, I'll let you lead the way."

Twitch blinked, "But I'm the sniper, I blow their brains out from a hundred yards away. I don't do grunt work."

"You do now," Two-Shot's grin stretched even wider, "Think of it this way, if you're first in, you get first crack at the guy. Hell, if you're lucky, you might even live to collect on the girl."

* * *

The doors of the apartment complex finally opened and rough looking men spilled out onto the street. He counted heads quickly coming up to twelve. Motion caught his eye and he swiveled the scope towards the post office, another five were coming out of there. The Courier grimaced; seventeen was an awful lot of meat to kill in an awfully short amount of time. It was something he'd use a light machine gun for, not a bolt-action, small-caliber rifle.

But since he didn't have a light machine gun, he pulled out three spare clips and set them within reach of his hand. Then he took a deep breath, centered his sights on a Raider with an impressive red Mohawk, and gently squeezed the trigger. The gun coughed quietly and Mr. Mohawk dropped like a sack of bricks. With his eye still on the scope he worked the bolt with his left hand. He fired. A Raider carrying a hunting rifle pitched forward. A mantra started repeating over and over in Courier's head. _Aim and shoot, aim and shoot, aim and shoot_. His mind counted down bullets. At zero he ejected the magazine and slid a fresh one in with one quick swipe.

_Five._

He fired. A Raider died.

_Four._

Bullets whined and snapped at the rubble all around him.

_Three._

The noise was incredible, an orchestra of destruction filled with shotguns and submachine guns and rifles booming and barking and thundering. Corroded concrete and rubble exploded in puffs of dust all around his sniping spot, obscuring the weak light of the setting sun.

_Two._

The Raiders hosed the area around him with lead and what they lacked in accuracy they made up for in sheer numbers, but the Courier never flinched. He repeated his mantra and remembered his count and with each shot the number of guns firing dropped by one.

_One._

Several Raiders made a break for the gas station but as he lined a bead up on the first Raider some sixth sense made him pan the scope back to the right. He was just in time to see some Raider punk poke her head out from cover and aim a grenade launcher at the window. In the split second he had, he fired first-

-and hit the concrete centimeters from her ear.

_Zero._

She fired.

It took three seconds for the forty millimeter grenade to hit the window. He leaped to his feet, sweeping up the pack and gun and tumbled behind a desk already knowing it wasn't far enough. Then the world vanished in a roar of sound. Something hit the back of his head; his mouth was full of copper. He couldn't hear a thing, his eyes wouldn't open, the only thing he felt was the cool tiles pressing against his cheek. Then the sound rushed back in and he could hear gunfire and someone yelling, and a strange, gong-like sound. Every bone in his body felt crushed and there was something on his eyes. When he wiped them with the back of his glove it came away slick with blood. He spat a red sticky mess out of his mouth.

"Shit."

The word came out shaky and tired. He grabbed the rifle and patted his pockets for a spare magazine. He finally found a clip on the last strap of his ammo pouch. He slid his last five rounds in and worked the bolt. He only had five shots but last count left seven Raiders still alive. _Okay, enough sitting around, get up you little weakling._ His mental drill sergeant bullied his body to its feet. His body protested most strenuosly at this and his vision blurred. and he had to lean against a rusted filing cabinet until the dizziness passed.

* * *

"Did you get him?"

"Don't know."

"…I think you got him."

Sis didn't say anything, she just cracked open the grenade launcher and slid a fresh shell in. She kept one eye on the blasted out fourth floor of the building as if she was waiting for something to jump out and yell "Boo!"

Twitch grimaced, "Relax Sis, nothing's walking away from that."

"Twitch." Two-Shot said tiredly, "Shut the fuck up."

"What? I'm just saying, I mean we poured enough lead into that building-"

Two-Shot slammed him against the wall. The cold steel of his shotgun barrel kissed Twitch's temple.

Twitch shut up.

"Eleven of _my Raiders_ fucking butchered, a _fuck load_ of ammo wasted, and the only thing of value is some little bitch that you shot. All because of some fucking deadeye with a rifle" He leaned in close and there was a slightly homicidal gleam in his eye. "Now I can't help but think that if a certain _shithead_ had waited until the travelers were in the kill zone, or at least shot the _man_ instead of the girl, if that anonymous shithead had followed the plan then I would still have a gang." He cocked the hammers on the shotgun, "You'd better hope that girl's still alive, Twitch." He said softly. "Because I am _really_ stressed, and if I can't take it out on the girl I'll take it out on your worthless carcass."

Twitch grinned and he had his own crazy light in his eyes. After a lifetime of using Jet, the chem. junkie's brain was too screwed up to know when to be scared. "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry, I'm your best sniper."

The butt of the shotgun connected to his face with a sickening crack of metal on bone. Even Sis winced. "I'll get another one." Two Shot growled, "One that's not a frickin Jet junkie."

He walked off with the rest of the Raiders and Twitch lay on the street and wondered idly if that meant no more Jet for him. Sis grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet, "Geez Twitch, did you really have to use his first name?."

Twitch gave her a bloodied grin. His mouth was a few teeth short of a smile now. "He was being a prick."

"Twitch, you're crazy." Sis muttered as they rejoined the gang.

"Like a fox." He snickered.

Two-Shot glared at him, "Billy, you wanna do the honors?" He turned towards one of the other Raiders.

Billy grinned and gripped the machete in his hands, "I love this part." He drew back one massive boot and slammed the door open. As he walked in he yelled "Honey I'm home!"

A nine millimeter answered him.


	4. Mr Death

**A/N: Thanks to all the people who've reviewed, I can't tell you guys how much that means to me! **

When Veronica heard footsteps, at first she thought Courier had come back. Then she realized there were too many boots clomping on the ground and she lifted the small handgun he'd given her. For such a deadly thing it was awfully light. She centered the fixed-iron sights on the door and if her hand shook a little, her eyes were determined. A man came through the door. He was big, he was ugly, and he was definitely not the Courier, so she opened up with the gun.

There was a lot of cursing and frantic motions as the Raiders tried to cram back out into the street. She kept the gun pointed at the doorway, waiting for someone else to poke their head in.

"Girl, put the gun down!" Someone yelled from behind the doorway.

Veronica laughed, "Now why the Hell would I do something stupid like that?"

There was a pause as they thought about it, "You put the gun down, we'll let you live after we're done with you." The speaker yelled. His voice was soothing, even reasonable, "We just want a bit of fun is all."

Veronica's stomach clenched just at the thought, but in reality it was actually a rather considerate deal. Seven men with guns could probably overpower her anyway, either way someone was going to force themselves on her. But Veronica had never been a reasonable sort of girl and the idea of taking a Raider's word on good faith was suicidal at best.

"You want some fun? Go kiss a Cazadore!" She yelled back.

The speaker suddenly chuckled, "I don't think so."

There was a quiet scuff of leather on the floor behind her. Veronica started to whip the gun around and something slammed into her side, knocking her over. The white-hot pain ripped through her body and the Raider who'd snuck in behind her grinned, "Remember me?"

"I don't think we've met," She gasped, "Because I'm sure I'd remember someone that ugly."

The Raider scowled, "You're real cute." He kicked her in the kidney. Hard. She thought she was about to puke up blood. "I hate cute…and armed." He reached down and plucked the pistol away from her searching hand, "You won't need that, bitch, or your clothes, but I think Two-Shot will want to be the one to tear those off." He kicked the weapon into the corner of the store, it might as well have been in another country for all the chance she had of reaching it now. "Boss!" he yelled, "The Bitch has been declawed!"

The door opened and six more Raiders walked in. The lead Raider was a short fellow with flinty black eyes and a grimy face. He smiled almost politely at her and patted the butt of his shotgun, "You should have taken my offer girl."

"You should have taken mine," she replied, "but I'll give you one more chance."

He laughed and then he grinned, "I've got a better idea, but wait, I'm forgetting myself. Sis, you capped the guy, you want first ride?"

"Two-Shot, you're a fucking pig." A female raider replied. She shifted uncomfortably and avoided looking at Veronica. "Just get your shit over with."

Two-Shot laughed, "Oh, I'm going to make you enjoy this girl." He straddled Veronica and she spat in his face. The Raider laughed and backhanded her. She saw stars explode across her vision and his hot, stinking body was pressed against hers and it was _wrong_, an utter violation of her very being. His hands ripped at her robe and he grinned and-

-and the door burst open and there were three deafening gunshots and three Raiders collapsed to the ground before anyone could even blink.

"Get off her you son of a bitch."

Two-Shot froze and there was the Courier looking like death warmed over and mad as hell. Blood caked his face and arms, there were burn marks on his shirt and the rifle on his back looked battered beyond repair but he steadily aimed a ten millimeter pistol still wet with blood from where he'd picked it up off a dead Raider. His cold blue eyes were lit with an inhumane fury that was about to go nuclear.

Yes, he was pissed.

"Twitch?" The Raider boss hissed, "You gonna cap this bastard?" The Courier never moved, just flicked a glance at Twitch. The glance could have made a Nightskin run the other way. It was certainly enough to make the third surviving Raider cautiously place his rifle on the ground. "Hey me and Sis are just spectators here, but we're rooting for you Boss." He grinned and there was nothing pleasant in that smile. Sis nodded and lowered her grenade launcher onto the floor as well.

"Off." The word was carved in stone, the command daring to be defied.

The Raider slowly crawled off her body and pulled up his pants. "Look," he said, "We can make a deal-"

The ten millimeter barked once and the back of Two-Shot's skull exploded in a fine mist of blood, gray matter, and bone. No witty one liner, no clever banter, just a gunshot.

The man who just moments ago had been in the process of physically violating her now dropped to the ground beside her, dead in a matter of seconds. "Santangelo, you alright?" The Courier asked calmly, blue eyes hard as ice as he kept the pistol trained on the two surviving Raiders.

"Yeah," she lied, with a shaky voice still shocked over what had almost happened. _No, don't even think about what could have happened. If he'd come in five minutes later, if he'd been dead, if no one had stopped that…that fucking bastard from- _"Yeah, I'm good."

He gave her a look and she saw something that told her he knew she was bullshitting.

"Well that's great!" Twitch said suddenly. "The cowboy comes in guns blazing, the jerk's dead, see Sis, I told you there'd be a happy ending." He slowly started backing for the door, "Now if you'll excuse us…"

"That's a nice rifle." The Courier said suddenly, "Is it yours?"

Twitch glanced at the sniper rifle lying on the floor and his face paled. "Oh shit."

"Your boss tried to rape her and I killed him. You shot her," Courier said quietly, "What do you think I'll do to you?"

"No." Veronica said quietly. The two Raiders stared at her in surprise, but Courier didn't blink. "You can't shoot them," she whispered, "they're unarmed, they've surrendered." _And the good guys don't shoot unarmed people._

"And they would have raped you and left you to rot in a ditch." He replied calmly.

"And if you shoot them, you'll be no better than them." She replied.

"I never said I was." He answered. Then he lowered the gun a few degrees and fired.

Twitch collapsed to the ground and clutched his side. The other Raider cried out and grabbed him, "Bastard!" She screamed at the Courier, "You fucking bastard!" Even Veronica could only stare at him in shocked surprise.

Twitch gasped for breath, and then he laughed, a short, shaky sound, "An eye for an eye, huh?" He hissed in pain but he was grinning like he'd just discovered some delightful little secret.

"Same place you shot her," Courier said quietly, "Same chance she has of surviving it."

"You're a charitable man, Mr. Death." The sniper wheezed, "A fucking charitable man". The girl Raider helped him to his feet and gave them both a look like they were crazy, which probably wasn't too far off the mark.

"No I'm not, if I see you again, I'll aim higher." He gestured towards the back door, "Get out."

The two Raiders limped out the back door. The door swung shut but the Courier still had his gun trained on it, as if expecting them to stick their heads back in. "Santangelo, can you stand?"

"Yeah." She whispered. She didn't know this man; she didn't know him at all. He turned his back on her and walked over to where the nine millimeter lay on the ground. The Courier picked it up and reverently cleaned the dust off it before he stuck it in his holster. "Alright, I'll check your wound and then we'll leave." He turned around and then he stopped and really looked at her. At the way her arms covered her chest, and her legs trembled, and how her face was as pale as snow.

There was concern in his eyes "Santangelo..." and then he stiffened as she wrapped her arms tightly around him. Her head pressed against his coat and she just stayed like that for a few moments.

"Sorry," Her words were muffled by the leather of the coat but she gave a shaky laugh, "It's not every day some ugly local tries to get things going with me."

He gave her an awkward, friendly pat on the back, and then he relented and hugged her back and that's when she lost it. Veronica cried. She cried harder than the day her parents died, harder than the day her love had left her, she cried until her nose was dripping and her eyes were a blotchy red.

The Courier never said a word, he just held her as she tried to wash away all of the horror of what had just happened. She would never understand him. He was cold, he was inhumane, he killed without thought or mercy, and yet he'd stopped at nothing to protect his companion.

The tears finally stopped flowing, the waterworks shut down. Veronica felt exhausted and yet strangely clean. "Thanks." She mumbled.

He released her and nodded, "Don't mention it," he raised an eyebrow, "Don't mention it or people will think I've gone soft."

Veronica slowly turned full circle around the room taking in all the blood splatters and bodies. There was a lot of both. Then she looked at him and raised an eyebrow, "Oh I don't think you'll have to worry about anyone thinking that."

He chuckled, "Still, why tempt fate." He pulled out the ten millimeter pistol and handed it to her; handle first, "Here, keep it. As soon as I can, I'll teach you how to use it."

She frowned, "Can I still punch things?"

"Absolutely."


	5. Silent Reassurance

**A/N: Sorry for the long wait. Another short chapter, but hopefully one you'll enjoy. As always, thanks for reading and love the reviews!**

They moved into the department store across the street from the gas station. The Courier searched each floor methodically until they came across a small pharmacy on the fifth floor that was mostly intact. Then he led Veronica into the bathroom and had her sit on the mostly intact counter while he lathered his hands up to the elbow with acidic home-made cactus soap and rinsed them in mildly irradiated water. He had to rinse three times before the water stopped running red with the blood that had splattered on his hands and arms.

"Courier I think your hands are clean," Veronica said when she saw him eyeing the soap for a fourth time.

"You know what most people who survive gunshots die from?" Courier asked.

"Um, a second gunshot when the Raider who shot them realizes they're still kicking?" Veronica asked innocently.

Courier grunted, "Infection. Easy to prevent, lousy way to die."

"Well I'm pretty sure that no germ could survive that hydrochloric acid you call soap or the radiation bath in the water." She answered.

"Probably," he agreed, but he still washed his hands a fourth time, and Veronica didn't say anything. Then he had her pull the robe up to her chest, revealing a pair of shorts and gray undershirt. The Courier was careful not to lift the shirt a centimeter past the wound, trying to help her maintain some dignity about the whole affair, and then he gently laid his hands on her side. He'd done this before, but this time Veronica wasn't foggy from shock or painkillers. His hands felt cool on her warm skin and she realized it'd been a long time since someone had touched her bare skin. Then she shuddered as she realized it hadn't been too long, just earlier that day another man had done the exact same to her. Different intentions, but the same sensation.

She didn't say anything, but the Courier looked up at her silently. His pale blue eyes weren't the warmest or most compassionate eyes she'd ever seen but those frozen depths, so cold they would make the Grim Reaper want to turn up the thermostat, those eyes of ice told her that she would be safe with him. So Veronica forced herself to relax and he gently unwrapped the bandages.

He exhaled, not a dramatic sigh, just a quiet, short release of air. "I'm sorry, was that a good sigh or a bad sigh?" Veronica asked.

"Good." He replied tersely.

She craned her head down to look at the wound and the bruising around it, "Good?" she asked indignantly, "Puke-Ugly purple is good?"

"Yes," he replied, "Means there's no infection. Pretty-Scarlet is bad however." He raised an eyebrow, "I thought you've done this before?"

"Hey, I was a grocery shopper for the bunker, not the battlefield surgeon from Hell, my knowledge of First Aid is if it bleeds, slap a stimpack on it!" She snapped.

He chuckled quietly to himself, "Well now you know how to deal with a cut if you don't have a stimpack." He pulled out a small spray-bottle of disinfectant and gave the wound a liberal coating. She ignored the alcoholic sting and he rewrapped the wound with clean bandages. "Just think, when we get to Vegas, you can show all the girls your scar and impress them with how brave and badass you were."

She smirked, "The girl-magnet scar sounds good, but I'm not sure sitting in a corner with a gun counts as being badass and brave. Sort of pales in comparison to a guy who kills almost an entire Raider gang all by his lonesome."

"Just leave that part out," he suggested as he pulled out supper. Veronica groaned.

"Cram again?"

* * *

After supper the two unrolled their bedrolls. The Courier had turned off the light from his Pip-Boy and so the only illumination was a narrow shaft of moonlight that managed to filter through the dirt encrusted windows. While Veronica slid quickly under her sheets, Courier performed his nightly ritual. Every night like clockwork he would pull out that small gun of his and work the slide, loading a bullet into the chamber, eject the clip and slip another shell in. Then he'd place it to the right of his pillow, within easy reach of his hand. Then there'd come the rasp of metal on leather as he unsheathed a very sharp combat knife and the whistle of the blade through air as his hand would unconsciously twirl it twice in midair before sliding it under the pillow. Then, only after those steps would he allow himself to pull off his heavy coat and lie down on the mat. He'd drape the coat over himself like a blanket, make a soft grunt, and then be asleep within five seconds, safe and secure in the knowledge that two very deadly pieces of equipment were within instant reach of his hands.

However, sleep eluded Veronica. She twisted and turned on her bedroll, constantly searching for that elusive spot on her bedroll that would send her body to blissful sleep. Instead she grew more and more agitated as the memories of the day before played in her mind. The room began to shrink in around her, the shadows grew darker and ice raced down her spine. The door opened, she looked up but Courier was gone. A hand, a grimy, bloody hand seized her arm and she looked up. Two-Shot grinned at her, blood and ichor from a fatal gunshot covered his face but that grin was still the same. "I'm going to make you enjoy this, girl." He breathed at her as he leaned over her and-

-Veronica woke up with a gasp. The room was silent save for Courier's quiet breathing and her beating heart. Two-Shot was gone, of course he would be. If she climbed down the stairs and across the street to the gas station, she'd find his corpse in the ditch where the Courier had dumped his body after placing a single round neatly between the eyes. Yet that didn't dispel the remnants of the nightmare that still clung to her. Even now Veronica imagined she could hear the thump of Two-Shot's corpse as it slowly dragged its way up the stairs. Courier grunted softly in his sleep and she looked at him. The moonlight had fallen across his face, giving him an almost unearthly glow. In sleep the hard planes of his face had softened into something approaching ruggedly attractive, but they still held a hint of how dangerous he was. Then she smiled as she realized that even if her nightmare did come to life and crawl up those stairs, Courier would send it back to Hell just as quickly. She lay back on the mat and listened to Courier's steady breathing. The rest of her sleep was nightmare free.


	6. Tell me who I am

Courier woke up the next morning. For a few seconds he blinked blearily at his surroundings, letting his body flush away the remaining grogginess. He pulled the knife out from under the pillow and massaged his head with the hilt of the blade, pushing back a dull headache. A parting gift from a mild concussion, courtesy of close proximity to a grenade. His body felt stiff and sore, complaining about the rough treatment that he'd given it yesterday in the gunfight with the Raiders. Brusquely he shoved away the discomfort and stood up. His body obeyed, somewhat reluctantly. Muscles stretched out their soreness and tendons popped as he worked out the kinks. _Admit it,_ he told himself, _You're getting older. _

There was a mirror set into one of the walls. As Courier stretched, he gazed at his reflection in the grimy surface. Light blue eyes that Veronica insisted were the color of mountain ice stared back at him. He rubbed a hand over his face, feeling the rough scratch of stubble, the slight bumps that signified small scars. His hair was getting longer, now it actually extended an inch or two past his skull almost hiding a small white perfect moon circle. This was his face, the face he had had all his life, and that small circular scar was the reason why seeing his own face was seeing a stranger's face.

The only concrete image of his life before Goodsprings had been in the last seconds of his old life.

_A single lantern, spilling a small glow of light across his captors' faces. A freshly dug grave waiting for a body to fill it. His pallbearers, two grimy thugs in leathers that he knew where Great Khans. They were the hardest of the hard…and they were scared…of him. Him, who was currently trussed up tighter than a Brahmin waiting for slaughter, stripped down to his undergarments, searched high and low for any weapons he may still be concealing. Then the orchestrator of all of this stepped forward, a slick man in a pristine suit. "Sorry about this," he'd apologized, almost sounding sincere as he pulled out a small hand gun. Like that would forgive him for doing what he did next. The bark of the gun, a blinding pain, darkness. His body, knowing no other way to deal with the massive trauma that had just been introduced to his cranium, went into shock. He was still breathing when they shoveled dirt over him, filling in the grave. _

But that lover of dramatic irony, that bastard called Fate had conspired against the man. Courier had lived, had woken up after all, resurrected in a manner of speaking, only to find that bullet to the head had done something worse than try to kill him.

"_What's your name?" The man asked, leaning forward kindly, and Courier experienced a rare moment of panic as he opened his mouth and nothing came forward. "I don't know…" he said finally. The man raised an eyebrow and clucked his tongue, "Well, until you do know, I suppose Courier will have to do.". _

There were clues though, sometimes triggers that would access split-second strands of memory. Sometimes a scent, a random phrase, a picture or a sound, a texture on his skin. After making sure he was good to come out of bed, the doctor had shown him some pictures. Blurs of black and white smudged on paper-_Just tell me what these look like, son._ He'd given nondescript answers,_ -I'm sorry, I'm not sure, cloud maybe?_ He'd lied. The first one had been a lightless house, the second a knife thrusting through a man's throat, the spray that of crimson life blood. The third, the muted flash of a gunshot.

That was only the beginning

He'd learned he was a crack shot when the woman the doc had left him with took him out back for target practice. Hugging the stock tightly to his shoulder felt familiar, as intimate as the caress of a lover. He'd aimed down the sights already knowing they were slightly offset. He adjusted to compensate, completely calm, almost soothed by the solid weight of the gun, the lethal purpose it symbolized. He fired, and in that crack of gunpowder, discovered his first memory. _A man's head, red hair, green eyes, weathered skin. His face seen through a scope, turned slightly sideways as he talked to someone else, and then the bottle exploded into a million shards, wiping away the memory._

Then later that day they'd gone gecko hunting. There'd been a woman, about to be swarmed by a trio of oversized lizards. His body had reacted, taking the nine-millimeter pistol provided for him by the doc and squeezing the trigger six times, double tapping the predators, killing the last one in mid-leap before his mind even realized what had happened. Except his mind did realize what had happened, because he'd done it before. The woman had thanked him, practically fell on her face, and the Courier had felt nothing as she earnestly thanked him for saving her life. If his bullets had been late, if the woman had lain on the ground, a lifeless corpse, Courier suspected he still would have felt nothing.

_Another snapshot of his previous life. Three figures, seen through a window, sitting around a small table in a shack far from the major settlements, the only light a small pre-war lamp powered by a dying fission battery. Their bodies hunkered low, the stench of bodies living in an enclosed space for several days, their actions those of the hunted, the battery died, the light sputtered out, in the darkness a door crashed open. Another snapshot, same three men, slumped over the table, two holes in each head that leaked dark red liquid and soft gray matter. _

_Enough_, he told himself. The sun was breaking, there was work to do, time better spent than gazing at himself in the mirror like some preening woman. He glanced at his sleeping companion, almost smiling at her slightly slack mouth, the unconscious way she turned her head towards the warming light.

But his mouth remained set in its stubborn line and he quietly pulled his coat on. Slipping the knife back in its sheath, the gun back in its oiled leather holster, the rifle upon his-

Courier paused and grimaced at his dearest weapon. It had not escaped yesterday's skirmish unmarked. The stock was splintered near the end. The lens on the scope was cracked, and the barrel was slightly bent by the nearest half of a degree, which in a high powered tool relied on for accuracy and range, was the same as a runner with an ingrown toe-nail.

He placed the weapon back in its resting place with a strange feeling of loss, unused to the lack of weight where the stock should be rubbing against his shoulder blade. Some of the Raiders had carried similar rifles; perhaps the Scribe could help him jury-rig something for the gun.

With that cheering thought lifting him up to his normal dour mood, the Courier quietly walked down the stairs and through the cracked door on the bottom floor. With any luck, he'd have yesterday's bodies salvaged before breakfast.

* * *

Veronica woke surrounded by a small arsenal. Sharp knives, metal chains, pistols, submachine guns, shotguns, and bolt action rifles lay strewn around the room, laid out neatly in organized piles like they were being displayed by a swap-meet. The orchestrator of it all sat calmly cross legged in the middle, emptying bullets out of a pistol clip and placing the scavenged rounds in another pile of gleaming brass.

"Morning." She said finally.

Courier grunted, "How was your sleep." He had a scowl on his face. She knew he wasn't angry though. When he was angry, his voice got really quiet, his face got really calm, and his eyes became polished shards of ice. This was more an expression of unconscious concentration as he sorted the plundered equipment

"Fine until I woke up in the middle of an armory. I could have swore this was a five star hotel." She spied a famillar looking double barrel shotgun. Alongside it lay a well-used sniper rifle the word _Twitch _stenciled on the side"These the Raiders?" she asked.

"Not anymore," he said, "Dead men can't pull triggers, and disgruntled survivors don't need to be getting their hands on rifles." His hands began moving in the pile of ordinance dividing ammunition based on what gun it was for. "We'll have to stash some of the heavier pieces but if we split the load I think we can carry most of these. There's an NCR camp north of here, I figure we can unload these there. Got to be someone buying, how's your wound?"

Veronica shrugged and pulled up her shirt, the wound was almost gone, thanks to the stimpack, "Better, but I'm not sure it's up to being a pack mule." _Or walking into an enemy camp,_ she thought sourly. Actually the NCR was no longer an enemy. The war between the Brotherhood and the NCR was over; the Brotherhood had ceased to be a military presence in the area, choosing to die slowly in their hidden bunker-tomb.

"I'll carry the heavy load," Courier stated, "Santangelo…how good are you at fixing things?"

"Give me duct-tape and I can make a rocket fly again," she boasted with a smirk, "Well…maybe a little more than duct tape."

Without a word he got up and made his way into the corner where he retrieved the rifle he'd used yesterday. He made his way back over to her and held it out like he would a sick infant, "Can you fix it?" he asked.

Veronica grimaced at the dismal state of the weapon, "What happened?"

"Rifles don't bounce," he replied, "and they don't play well with live grenades."

Veronica examined it. The barrel was warped, the stubby silencer affixed to the end was cocked at a crooked angle, the glass lens for the scope was scratched and the fact that the stoke was still attached was a miracle. "You'd be better off buying a new one, this one's only worth is spare parts now." She answered.

"Fair enough," Courier said gruffly.

"Wait…" she said, "I guess I could try to fix it."

He seemed to think about it for a moment. In a way his attachment to the gun was understandable. In the Wasteland more often than not a gun was the only thing standing between life or death. _Take care of your gun and your gun will take care of you_ was how the saying went. But there were times where a person could get too attached to a piece of metal and this was one of them.

Without answering her, he laid the gun on the floor, and then he walked over to the sniper rifle. He picked it up, resting it against his shoulder, getting a feel for the weight of the new weapon, the earlier, annoying bout of misguided attachment fading away. "It's just a gun, Santangelo," he said calmly, "And when a tool breaks you replace it."

* * *

After a quick breakfast of more two-hundred year old food, they left the store with packs bulging with lethal merchandise. For her part, as they walked down the cracked street, Veronica tried not to look at the corpses. She was doing a good job until they came to the apartment complex at the end of the block. There somebody had taken Two-Shot's corpse and beaten the tar out of it, then posed it in a crude posture. On the crumbling wall above it was a crusty red epitaph.

_Here lies Two-Shot_

_Killed with a twitch_

_And just One-Shot_

_So tell me true, Jerry_

_Who's the shithead now? _

It was signed with a smiley face and "Twitch."

"Well I'll never hire that guy to plan my funeral." Veronica said, but the joke felt hollow in the morning air. Now, in the light of day, staring into those glazed over eyes, at the broken body, she felt only pity. She wondered what had made a boy named Jerry into a bastard named Two-Shot. _The Wasteland happened, that's what._ She thought.

Veronica put her pack on the ground and walked over to the body. A second later she heard another pack fall to the ground and Courier joined her. Together the two lifted the body and placed it in a small ditch and covering it with concrete rubble.

Surprisingly, it was Courier not Veronica who made the marker. A piece of wood with the word Jerry carved in it followed by R.I.P

"Why not Two-Shot?" Veronica asked.

Courier didn't answer, he just turned around and picked up his pack, "I want to reach Camp McCarran before noon." He didn't give the grave another glance.

* * *

**A/N: **_Thanks to all the reviewers, their words were my mental kick in the rear to get this chapter posted, kudos to all! As always tell me what you think, what you like and don't like, and if you want, feel free to send a suggestion my way. _


	7. I Put a Spell on You

True to his word, they reached Camp Mccarran before noon. Veronica supposed that the Pre-War forts had been more impressive, but from a Wastelander's point of view, the camp did just fine looking imposing.

Thick concrete walls towered into the sky while brown coated NCR troopers kept watch from the walls and patrolled on foot around it. The patrols let them pass without incident. An anonymous courier with no record and a woman in a robe was not their idea of a Legion or Fiend raiding team.

The two passed through the sliding gate and for a second all Veronica could do was stare. As far as the eye could see, rows of tents rose in neat orderly rows, all the way to the far wall of the camp. NCR troopers were everywhere, shooting rifles at target dummies, performing maintenance on weapons, lugging supplies to different parts of the base.

"Santangelo?" Courier muttered. People were stopping to stare at the two of them, probably wondering what they were doing. A _lot _of former-enemy NCR troopers were looking at her. Veronica felt like she had a big neon sign screaming _Brotherhood of Steel Scribe, shoot on sight!_

"Sorry," she managed, "Just never expected there to be so many people here."

Courier nodded and looked square at one NCR trooper who looked like he was thinking of coming over there. There was nothing hostile about Courier's stare, he didn't scowl or glare, his eyes were simply blank of any human feelings whatsoever.

The trooper decided to stay where he was.

"You can wait outside." Courier offered.

Veronica shook her head, "No, I'm okay, besides, someone has to be the pack mule."

Courier nodded and the two continued on. Passing a checkpoint of sandbags they entered the main building of the camp. In the pre-war days it used to be a monorail station, now it served as the headquarters for the NCR's activities on the Strip. Grimy skylights filtered out most of the sunlight, giving the facility an almost gloomy amount of lighting. In a way, the dim lighting reminded her of the Brotherhood bunker, but only a little. The Brotherhood bunker had always been a series of small rooms crammed together, here the main room soared out like some cathedral, large enough to have an echo if a man gave a shout. It was also much less crowded inside. In the bunker a person couldn't take two steps without rubbing shoulders with a hulking Paladin or running into some Scribe. Here there were only a few soldiers and the occasional glimpse of an officer's beret.

"Where is everyone?" Veronica asked quietly.

"Probably in the Mess Hall," Courier answered. The two walked up to the "front desk" a long line of sandbags manned by a bored looking trooper. The trooper gave them directions to a man named Contreras; apparently he was the one to go to for supplies and other…necessities.

"Well that doesn't send the wrong impression," Veronica muttered as they walked through a pair of doors guarded by two troopers.

"From the sounds of things, Contreras is a snake," Courier said quietly, "Which means he'll probably try to short change us."

"And if he tries to be a dirty, conniving scoundrel and cheat us?" Veronica asked, "Hypothetically speaking of course, since the NCR is a shining example of humanity."

Courier gave her an almost amused look, "Then hypothetically speaking, I'll just have to make him see reason."

Then they entered the mess hall and the conversation was finished. If the main floor of the terminal had been quiet, this was anything but. Men and women crammed into open seats, finding whatever space they could. The voices echoed in the wide room, becoming a mindless buzz of different voices talking and laughing, angry tones mixed with happier ones. The smell of dozens of different dishes mixed together and made Veronica well aware that she hadn't had anything since breakfast.

Past the mess hall was a long corridor that gently sloped down to a scrap metal door. Veronica's first impression of the Supply Shack as she stepped through the door was shady, very, very shady. A couple of lights tried half-heartedly to spread some glow but most of the room was dark. Most of the room was bare, a couple of workbenches in one corner, a bed on the second floor and a computer terminal.

There was a man working at the computer, when he heard the door shut he looked up quickly.

Veronica got an instant's view of a weasely face with dark hair and a sleazy moustache, then he turned back to the screen, angling his body to obscure what he was working on…probably something illegal. "Be with ya in just a minute." Even his voice sounded oily.

Oh this was going to be fun.

* * *

Five minutes later Courier and Contreras were engaged in the age old tradition of trying to weasel the other out of a fortune…well, Contreras was. He inspected a couple of SMGs, holding one up to the faint light. He made a disappointed grunt as if he had detected some minute flaw in the well maintained weapon and set it back down on the table, already lowering the price by a couple hundred caps. The glorified merchant glanced at the two sellers to see their reactions.

Courier just smirked.

"Well…given the less than pristine condition of the merchandise," Contreras ran a finger over a hunting rifle's scratched stock, "And the high quality that the NCR demands in its equipment, I'll give you…a thousand."

Veronica made a choking sound in the back of her throat. "That's its weight in scrap!"

"It's all its good for," Contreras argued amicably, "This is a hard world, girlie, men need to know their equipment can perform well, and quite frankly, I am not willing to risk NCR troopers' lives with faulty weapons."

"That's very…noble of you." Courier said calmly.

"If by noble you mean as slimy as a Radroach in the sewers, then yes I agree." Veronica said, as sweet as a Radscorpion stinger covered in honey, "Very, very noble."

"Miss I don't approve of your tone," the merchant said smugly. He turned to Courier and gave him a look as if to say _you brought a girl to a men's sport?_ "I'll give you eight hundred, final offer."

The honeyed stinger lost its honey, "You said a _thousand-_"

Courier gently, but firmly laid a hand on Veronica's shoulder. "Santangelo, why don't you go grab a bite to eat." He suggested.

"Courier this glorified Mole Rat is practically robbing us!" Veronica hissed quietly.

"Santangelo…" Courier was beginning to get a hard edge in his eyes.

Veronica threw her hands up in disgust, "Fine." _Men! _She thought.

Courier nodded a gruff sign of thanks that went unnoticed as Veronica headed out the door, the very definition of PMS. He'd probably get an earful later. The door slammed shut like a death knell tolling and he gave a mental nod, _an earful and probably an attempted castration._

_First things first…_

He turned around and remembered to put an understanding smile on his face. "Now Sergeant Contreras, I understand you have some misgivings as to the performance of the goods…may I give you a demonstration?"

The merchant shrugged, already confident in his ability to deprive Courier of well-earned caps.

The poor sod didn't even know who he was dealing with.

* * *

Veronica stormed up the long corridor, muttering under her breath about men, Courier in particular and…well some things are best left undocumented. She emerged from the tunnel and the noisy din of the mess hall quieted as men and woman, who, through some primal sense of survival, became aware of the young woman who was madder than a Yao Guai with cubs.

If Caesar himself had come jumping through one of the grimy skylights with a tap dance routine and a white flag in his hand, no one would have noticed.

_Great way to make a first impression,_ the Scribe told herself, _rabid woman, stay away._

However, the chef at the counter was made of sterner stuff than most of the other troopers. Forged in the fires of the kitchen, he gave her a look and only asked, "What'll it be?"

"Water," she muttered, the last thing she needed was to be angry _and _drunk, "Pure if you got it, and something dead on a plate."

"Still got a few Brahmin steaks left," The chef said.

"Dead mutated cow sounds good to me."

The chef chuckled, "Thirty caps."

Veronica nodded and rooted around in her money pouch. Then someone laid a couple of NCR bills on the counter and moved into the seat next to hers,

"Make that two." The NCR officer said. He wore an officer's mantle armor with a dark colored captain's beret. He had dark colored hair and brown eyes that gave her a knowing look. "Either you've been wrestling with a Deathclaw or you had to deal with that snake we all love and call Contreras."

"Let's go with wrestling a Deathclaw," Veronica said wryly, "Much more stoic."

The captain laughed, "To be honest, I'd prefer doing that to having to deal with Contreras." He extended a hand, still smiling, "Captain Ronald Curtis, NCR."

"Veronica Santangelo," she said grudgingly extending her hand, "Wrestler of Deathclaws."

The man grinned and gave her hand a firm shake, "Nice to meet a fellow practitioner."

Their food arrived, two plates full of anonymous looking lumps of meat that smelled surprisingly good and two bottle of fresh-from-the-fridge purified water. Curtis took his and grasped the bottle, "A toast?" He asked.

"To what?"

"To a mutual hatred of Contreras."

Veronica smirked, "I wouldn't call it hatred, more a deep loathing." _Like seeing a Radroach and grinding it into the dirt._

"Deep loathing it is," Curtis amended and they tapped bottles together.

Despite her faction's bad history with the NCR, Veronica couldn't help but start to like the guy, officer's cap or no. Veronica dug into her steak and almost gasped in sheer pleasure as the combination of meat and sauces filled her mouth. "This…this is good," she said finally. _Much better than two-hundred year old Cram._

Curtis laughed, "You act like you haven't had a good meal in days."

"Captain, if I told you my story for the past few days…I can't guarantee you won't be crying in a corner."

"I think I'll risk it," he said, "and I'm off duty for the moment; so feel free to call me Ronald."

_Here it goes, _Veronica thought, recognizing the opening salvo of flirting, "How about Curtis for now?"

The man shrugged, surprising her by graciously accepting the gentle rebuke, "Curtis it is," he agreed, "So long as I get to hear that story."

So Veronica told him. Not her whole life story and certainly not the thing about how she was a Brotherhood Scribe, mostly it was just the story of her life starting at that trading post and moving on to the present. She omitted a couple of details, glazing over the parts like the Raider's attempted rape, but Curtis had this way of asking questions and filling in the gaps and somehow he got more of the story than Veronica had planned to share. Veronica didn't mind, she was having a good meal and Curtis made her feel comfortable. Unlike most of the bar mates she'd been forced to spend time with, Curtis seemed to think of her more as a person than a bed-warmer.

His gentle flirting was nice though…nothing too lewd, just an acknowledgement that he was sharing a meal with an attractive woman. To be honest she didn't really mind men it was just that back at the bunker, everyone had been expecting her to pick a suitable mate and churn out babies to "Ensure the prosperity and survival of the Brotherhood." That had been one of the main reasons she'd chosen a member of the same sex as her mate, sort of a slap in the face of all that crap about following what the codex says and doing one's duty.

_Yes Elder McNamara, yes Head Paladin Hardin, I'm having a conversation with an attractive guy in a bar…and he's an NCR captain._ The thought made her smile. Then Veronica realized Curtis was saying something.

"I'm sorry," she blushed, "What were you saying?"

"I was wondering how long you'd be in camp." He said.

"I don't know, it all depends on Courier." Veronica admitted. Movement caught her eye and she turned, _speak of the devil._

Courier settled down in the other seat looking almost…smug? He pulled out a small pouch and laid it on the counter where it landed with a rather heavy clinking noise.

Veronica picked it up, "This isn't eight hundred caps."

"No." Courier agreed as he ordered a drink. "Try four thousand."

Veronica did a fairly good impression of jaw falling to the floor, "What happened?"

"I told you earlier, I made him see reason." Courier grunted, "Who's your friend?"

Curtis smiled and extended his hand. "Captain Ronald Curtis, you must be Courier."

Courier glanced at the hand, "Yes." He said. His drink arrived and he calmly took a swig.

"Don't be offended, he was a block of ice when I first met him too," Veronica confided.

"No, I understand Veronica," Curtis smiled, "I understand the Wasteland isn't the friendliest place."

"Do you?" Courier asked, "I wasn't aware that NCR officers ever left camp."

Curtis smiled, but there was an edge to it, "I earned these bars the hard way, sir."

"I'm sure you did." Courier said calmly.

"Okay boys!" Veronica interrupted, "You're both manly! Now can the girl enjoy the rest of her meal?"

Just like that, the testosterone in the air simmered back to a more reasonable level. "My apologies," the captain said, he extended his hand again, this time with a wry smile, "Truce for the sake of Veronica's meal?"

The Courier hesitated then finally took the proffered hand, "It's no concern of mine who Santangelo wants to be friends with." That was the closest he would ever come to an apology, but it made Veronica smile. Both men finally settled down and it was looking to be a pleasant lunch of friends.

Someone cleared his throat. The three men looked up to see two NCR MPs standing behind them.

"Are you the man named Courier?" One of them asked.

"Is there a problem, sergeant?" Curtis asked.

Whatever the MP was about to say, he bit it back when he saw the captain's bars on Curtis's uniform, "No sir, Colonel Hsu just wants to have a talk with the new arrivals."

Veronica slowly turned to give Courier a look, "This wouldn't have anything to do with your very respectful, very reasonable talk with Contreras, would it?"

For the first time Veronica realized that the Courier's hand had faint bruises on the knuckles, "It's possible," the Courier admitted. He stood up, "Well Captain, I suppose you'll have to entertain Santangelo a little longer."

The MP didn't move, "Colonel Hsu wanted to talk to both of you, sir."

Courier's eyes narrowed, "Santangelo?"

"No, it's okay." Veronica assured him, "After all, we're just going to have a _normal_ talk, right?"

The MP gave her a confused look, "Yes ma'am." He was probably wondering what she meant by "normal talk." Then he glanced at the Courier who gave him a look.

The MP realized what normal talk meant.

* * *

_A/N: I know in the game Captain Curtis has about as much personality as a rock, but I decided to do a little tweaking to make it fit the story. The next chapter or two is when the action will start to pick up again._

_Also, I'd like to thank anonymous reviewer ethan as well as everyone else who took some time out of their days to write a review, once again, the reviews of a few are enough to get a lazy author away from the Xbox and on the computer._

_P.S. I've also changed Captain Curtis's first name to his real one, Ronald. Thanks to Krow Blood for spotting that._


	8. Deals With the NCR

The MPs escorted their charges to a small office on the bottom floor of the main lobby. In a word, it was spartan. Bare walls pocked with scrapes and broken chunks of plaster surrounded it. A couple of propaganda posters were the only decoration. The man seated at the computer on his desk looked up. Colonel Hsu had a pinched face that seemed utterly exhausted with the task of handling all the affairs of Camp McCarran.

A man with good intentions, who wasn't above dirtying those lapels on his coat to get things accomplished, an idealist at heart that had been sullied by practicality.

"Thank you Sergeant, you can leave us." Hsu glanced up, "Miss, if you could wait outside?"

Veronica glanced at Courier, who nodded.

"Don't take too long," she muttered as the MPs walked her out. The door swung shut and now it was just the two of them in the room.

Colonel Hsu sighed and placed a clipboard on the table. "You must be Courier."

"Yes."

Colonel Hsu gave a tired smile, "A man of few words, that's good." He flipped a couple of pages and glanced at them, "Courier, I'm in a dilemma."

Courier said nothing.

"See, I've got a Sergeant down in the infirmary with a severe concussion and screaming like a stuck pig when he's not puking his guts out. Now, normally I'd persecute his attacker under NCR military law."

Again, Courier didn't rise to the bait. If the Colonel had wanted to punish him, he would have already tried.

And there'd be a lot of bodies.

But he played along, engaging in the age old tradition of politics. Beating round the bush to make immoral decisions acceptable, to please the folks back home who didn't have an idea of what it was like out in the Mojave. No, the Colonel was just showing him the stick.

"That's unfortunate, give your Sergeant my sympathies," Courier told the Colonel as he sat down at the battered desk.

"I will," he pulled out a battered bottle, "Whiskey?"

Courier opened his mouth

–_A smoke filled haze surrounded the bar, the loud voices of a packed room full of strangers talking and gambling and drinking. Leaning forward, one hand on a glass, the other discreetly resting on a handgun. A young girl who couldn't be older than fifteen, despite claims to the contrary, came over to his table "Whiskey?" The man sitting across from Courier twitched suddenly. A gun went off.-_

"No thanks." He said, the remnants of memory fading away again, leaving him lost in the dark, again, "You said you had a dilemma?"

"I did indeed, and I have reason to believe a man with your versatile skills could very well be the right tool for solving my dilemma."

Ah, the wonders of language. A man could have an entire conversation about killing someone, without every actually saying the word. Courier pulled the battered hat off his head and rested it on his lap. His ice blue eyes glinted at the Colonel.

"Talk."

Hsu poured himself a generous measure of the amber colored liquid, "Courier, you ever heard of the Fiends?"

Courier shrugged, "Raiders with a bad taste for drugs. Half of them are psychotic, the other half are rabid. When you throw in a whole bunch of energy weapons, they go from being a nuisance to burning your town down." Courier paused and angled an eyebrow, "Having a pest issue, are we?"

"You could say that," Colonel Hsu took a swig and grimaced as the liquid burned down his throat. "metal plate and leathers don't exactly stand up well to lasers or plasma, and most of those psychos are so high it takes half a clip to drop one. Of course, that cuts both ways. Most of 'em are just a Jet fix short of permanent brain failure, so they're not too bright…at least they weren't."

"I take it that's changed." Courier prodded.

"I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a lot more Raiders in the city then there have been. Used to be we had patrols all across the Vegas ruins. A couple of months ago, Fiends started laying ambushes for our boys. We didn't think much of it, changed the patrol routes, shifted some men around. It's an occupational hazard out here. But they just kept coming, and coming, and coming. They'd mine streets, collapse buildings to obstruct routes, mount snipers on the rooftops, and they always, _always _knew where our boys were. Long story short, we've been reduced to patrolling only in a three mile radius from the camp, and in a city this big, that's not a whole lot of patrolling."

"Someone's been tipping them off." Courier stated.

"Yes," Hsu said, "And when I catch the bastard responsible, I'm going to have a new paperweight on my desk, but that doesn't concern you."

"Then what does?"

"There's two parts to this dilemma Courier. On the one hand, there's a mole that's releasing secrets to NCR enemies, and one solution is to silence that mole permanently. While that will cut down on the ambushes, the Fiends will still be as numerous as ever, and they won't be as scared of taking on the NCR as they used to." Hsu glanced at Courier, "Way I see it, someone needs to go in there and rattle the cages a little, put the fear of God in them so to say. For example, if several of their best killers were to end up dead in a most hideous fashion."

Courier smiled, and there was nothing warm about that smile, "I think I could imagine some circumstances where that might happen."

"Courier, I think we're at the start of a beautiful relationship here." Colonel Hsu said. This time, when he offered some whiskey, Courier accepted.

* * *

Veronica had been sitting outside the Colonel's office trying her best to ignore the two MPs standing at attention by his door like a pair of living statues. They meanwhile, were trying their best to keep an eye on her and look like they were ignoring her at the same time.

It didn't help that she was wondering what was happening to Courier right now. For all she knew, the penalty for assaulting that greasy weasel Contreras was death by firing squad. Would they tie him to a chair and throw him in the river? Maybe hamstring him and leave him in front of a Radscorpion nest-

_Stop it. _She told herself.

Finally, finally, the door opened, and while Veronica didn't exactly jump to her feet with anxiety, she did rise in a brisk manner. To her relief, Courier emerged from the office blood-free and in one piece. He exchanged pleasantries, a curt nod, with the gaunt looking colonel who followed him out and then Veronica was right there.

"So, what happened?" She asked.

"He gave me a job." Courier replied simply.

"So he just let you off the hook?" Veronica asked in disbelief as the two walked through the outer camp.

Courier shrugged, "He just needed some help with a problem, for that, he was willing to be…understanding, it's how the Wasteland works Santangelo, why are you so surprised?"

"I don't know if you get it, Courier." Veronica said, "You assaulted a member of the NCR, if you pulled that stunt in the Brotherhood-"

Courier gave her a sharp look, reminding her that they were in the middle of the largest NCR camp in the region. "If you pulled that stunt in the Brotherhood," she continued, much more quietly, "You'd get demoted to boot-licker at best, and shot or thrown out of the bunker at worst."

"Things are different here, Santangelo." He murmured, "People have to compromise, or else they die, simple as that." And then he straightened, eyes narrowing, "Son of a…"

"Courier?" Veronica asked, but the older man was already moving through the crowd of troopers, homing in on a man wearing a white shirt and army fatigue pants, with a red beret perched naturally on top of his head.

Courier walked up to him and the two stared at each other for a moment, eyes roaming up and down, sizing each other up, two Night Stalkers trying to decide who was the Alpha.

"Boone." He said finally.

"Courier." The other man greeted curtly.

"It's been a while."

"Yeah."

"Finally got a decent gun?" Boone asked, indicating the sniper rifle slung across Courier's back.

"I had a decent gun."

"You had something to shoot rats with."

"Have you seen the size of rats nowadays?"

"Still doesn't change it, what, you finally come to your senses and get a bigger gun?"

"Old one broke, this one works just as well, just need to modify it a bit."

Boone nodded, "I think the quartermaster here could fix you up with a silencer for it…Contreras, I think his name was."

"He can't." Courier said flatly, "Apparently got in a bit of an accident."

Boone smirked, "How about the Gun Runners, or have you pissed them off too?"

"I never piss off the people who make my weapons."

"Yeah well funny how some people take offense at the smallest thing."

"Like putting a small-caliber round in their skull?"

"I know, odd, isn't it?"

Courier glanced at Boone's gun, "Does that rifle still get some action?"

"The occasional Raider, Legion when I can find them, why?"

The other man shrugged, "Might have some work for you, if you're interested."

"It's possible." Boone allowed.

Courier nodded, "Alright then, catch you later."

"Likewise."

The two men turned in opposite directions and walked away. Boone disappeared back into the crowd of NCR troopers and Courier led the way to the main gates.

"What was that all about?" Veronica asked once the walled compound was behind them. Courier was walking, if not fast, then at a brisk pace. His eyes automatically scanned the horizon, but he seemed distracted, his eyes weren't quite so narrowed, his brow not so furrowed.

"What was what about?" He asked.

"You know, you, Boone," Veronica glanced at him, "Courier, we've been travelling for only five days, but I already know you don't just go up to people and have chats with them for no reason, you're an introvert if I ever saw one."

Courier smirked, "I can be very social when I feel like it, Santangelo."

"Your idea of social involves guns and lots of bodies."

"And?"

Veronica rolled her eyes, "Are you going to tell me or not?" Seriously, sometimes Courier's cryptic conversations drove her up the wall. A mirelurk was easier to talk to than him, and they didn't even have actual mouths.

"There's not much to tell, I met him in some backwater town, I did him a favor, he helped me in return, end of story-ah here we are."

Veronica looked up.

The road had led them to a small decrepit looking motel, a relic of the pre-war that looked like it was on its last breath. It sat on the edge of an overpass, over looking a cracked road. The only thing different about it was the sand-bag fortifications placed on their side of the overpass. Scrap metal huts and barricades had been erected as shields from the merciless sun and enemy attack; ten NCR troopers manned the fortifications, maybe a dozen more milled around the small network of tents that had been set up.

"Where are we?" She asked.

"The border between NCR territory and Fiend land." Courier grunted.

Veronica blinked, surprised, "Fiends this close to a major NCR camp?"

Courier grunted, "I know, embarrassing isn't it?"

"Embarrassing wasn't quite the word I had in mind, try bad, very, very, bad." Veronica muttered, "I mean if they can't even get some Fiends off their doorstep, how are they going to hold off Caesar's Legion?"

"I thought you didn't like the NCR?" Courier asked.

"Hey, they might be a bunch of republic prigs with a flag pole shoved up their asses, but at least they don't burn entire towns to the ground and slaughter every last man, woman, child, and dog."

"Yeah, the Legion are bastards," Courier muttered, "but they get results." His tone had an almost grudging respect in it, "The problem with bureaucracies is red tape, civvies back home who think they know better than you what's going on in the war, people concerned about morality. Sometimes though, you just have to get your hands dirty."

Veronica glanced at him. As he'd talked, his voice had gotten softer, but it was the quiet lull before a bullet came ripping through the air, or a Deathclaw ambushed someone. She'd heard something like that voice once before, in a boarded up gas station on the outskirts of Vegas. It was a voice that belonged to an entity that possessed no sentiments, no morality, that didn't feel hate, didn't feel love, something that couldn't be swayed by talk or action or plea. It was the voice of a grim reaper.

"Courier?" She asked slowly, "You okay?"

He blinked, and just like that he was suddenly just a dour, middle-aged man in a coat and hat, "I'm fine Santangelo." He glanced at the motel to their right, "We should get moving."

"Hey, hold it right there!"

Looked like the NCR had finally noticed them. Two troopers with thick leather collars pulled up over their faces approached them with rifles, if not aimed at them, pointed in their general direction, "What are you doing here?"

"Orders from the Colonel," Courier said calmly, pulling out a sheaf of grayed paper. One trooper took it like it could possibly contain a grenade. The solider scanned it in a couple of seconds and whistled

"Man, you got some serious cojones, mister," he said, tone suddenly respectful as he handed the papers back to Courier, "best of luck to you though."

Courier nodded and the two troopers went back to the barricade, "This way."

He led the way up the shuddering stairs, across the wooden walkway on the second floor until they came to a door that looked relatively intact.

"NCR probably already cleared out the motel," Courier murmured as he stepped to one side of the door, "But just in case…" there was the rasp of metal on leather and he had his gun in his hand, held close to his face, barrel pointing up at the roof. He placed a hand on the door and slowly eased it open.

He stepped through; gun at the ready, and the first thing to hit Veronica was the smell. It was a punch in the face, a combination of what smelled like rotting fruit mixed with vomit and human waste, an eye-watering blast that made her press the fabric of her sleeve against her nose.

"Geez, did something die in here?" She started to say, and then she stopped.

As a matter of fact something had indeed died in the motel room.

The door to the bathroom lay open, leading to a rusted sink and cracked tub. A man was sprawled across the tiles, face-down in a puddle of puke. Grubby clothes strained to contain a bloated fish-belly white corpse that slowly shivered, probably a fluke of the light breeze that ruffled his shirt.

"He died not too long ago," Courier muttered calmly, not fazed in the slightest by the body.

Veronica gagged as another light breeze brought the stench of decay to her nose again, "How can you tell?"

"Most of the flies are still maggots." Courier grunted as he bent down next to the body.

_Maggots? _

Veronica glanced at the body again, and realized that the wind wasn't ruffling the shirt, there were hundreds of inch long white grubs crawling across his body. And while her brain applauded itself on finally noticing, her stomach decided it was time to puke.

The room spun, she staggered out of the room like a drunk and into the fresh evening air. The scribe took deep gulps of the air and tried not to think of worms or anything white and crawly and really, really, trying not to puke.

There were footsteps behind her. "You okay?" Courier asked.

"Yeah, I'm okay," Veronica replied.

Then she threw up.

When her stomach stopped heaving, Veronica wiped her mouth, "Sorry," she mumbled, embarrassed at the mess. Courier simply offered her his canteen.

"Thanks."

The cold water washed away the bitter taste in her mouth and helped quell her stomach. When she was done, Veronica screwed the cap back on. "How do you do it?" She asked, "How do you stay calm?"

_How do you stay calm?_

He closed his eyes, remembering the smell of the dead body.

_-Heat on his face, something warm and sticky covering him. There'd been a battle, he'd been shot in the leg, someone's body had fallen over him. Then another body, and another, until he was stuck at the bottom of a grisly pile. The noon day sun beat down harshly through the space between bodies, scorching his skin. His hand was pinned to his side. The stench of unwashed bodies and spilled entrails was almost overwhelming, mixed with the heat it was suffocating, enough to make a man heave,, but he knew that if he threw up, he was going to drown in his own bile-_

"Experience." Courier answered.

"Ugh, remind me why we're here?" Veronica muttered.

"This is where I'm staying." He answered, stuffing the canteen back in his coat.

"You? What about me?"

"Colonel Hsu will provide quarters for you." He answered, "I hope you don't mind staying at the NCR camp for a few days."

"Won't be too terrible," Veronica admitted, "But why? I thought you had to get to the Strip." Then she paused, "This has something to do with that job Colonel Hsu gave you, doesn't it?"

"Santangelo," Courier sighed and rubbed his head, "Please, no more questions."

To his surprise, she nodded, "Alright then." She stepped close and placed a slender hand on his shoulder, "Just… promise me you won't do anything too suicidal, okay?" she asked, warm brown eyes staring up at him. Then she turned and left, heading back to the camp and it surprised Courier that he actually felt a little empty inside as he watched her walk away.

"I can't promise that, Santangelo." He whispered, even though she couldn't hear him. Then he shrugged off the strange weight that had settled over him and got to work.

In the few hours that remained before sundown, Courier got to work. He dragged the previous tenant of the apartment outside and dumped him in a rusted dumpster, muttering a quick apology for the indignity of it all. He opened all the windows as wide as they would go and found a couple of hundred year old cleaning supplies underneath the bathroom sink that he used to clean up the rest of the mess. While the room was airing out, he headed down a couple of blocks to a local kiosk run by Gun Runners, and grabbed a couple mod kits for his weapons among other necessities.

With a lighter wallet, he made it back with an hour to spare and spent the rest of the time modifying the sniper rifle with the add-ons. A silencer slid over the barrel, a low-light vision filter was incorporated into the scope and a spare magazine for the rifle was duct-taped to the mag already in the gun. Then he pulled out a smaller silencer, a custom one tooled for a nine-millimeter handgun.

* * *

It was almost eight by the time Boone made it to the El Rey motel. He'd swapped out his white shirt and red beret for a desert BDU shirt and boonie hat with the NCR sniper emblem pinned on it. Several of the NCR troopers glanced at the hat perched on his head and he glared back at them until they looked away. That was better. He didn't need their fucking judgmental looks, just because he was ex-NCR.

Boone didn't need much of anything nowadays, except killing.

He knocked on the door of the motel that Courier was staying in. The door opened, and he found himself staring at the wrong end of a gun.

"Boone." Courier greeted, the gun disappeared back in its holster.

"You always this paranoid?" Boone asked as he stepped inside.

"Old habits." Courier said, "Good to have, hard to get rid of."

He'd changed out of his long coat and his hat was gone. Now he wore a form fitting jacket and his ice blue eyes glittered from behind a balaclava and a tactical vest loaded with ammo covered his jacket. The entire thing was colored in light shades of gray that would blend in perfectly with the ruined cityscape of west Vegas

He looked like a ghost risen from the wreckage of a city, and as he slid a combat knife into its sheath and slung the rifle bag containing his sniper rifle over his shoulder, Boone felt a brief stab of pity for their prey.

"Ready?" Courier asked.

Boone patted the stock of his rifle in answer.

"Let's go hunt assholes then."

* * *

_A/N: Wow, it's been so long since I've updated this story, feels like forever. My apologies to all the people who have been patiently waiting, after many revisions, bouts of writer's block, and empty soda cans, chapter eight is done. In regards to the plot, there's been a few changes to the story that differ from the game. I know in reality you don't get the Fiend bounty quest from Colonel Hsu, but I whipped out my artistic license, because I think it flows better with the story plot. _

_Okay, now I'm rambling. _

_As always, feel free to review and tell me the good, the bad, and the ugly in regards to the story._


	9. First Blood: Beware of Dogs

The first one on Courier's list was a Fiend named Violet of all things. She seemed to be a lone wolf among the Mojave thugs; all her followers were dogs, literally. Her camp was a few miles north-west from the NCR border and it was there that Courier and Boone headed. For the most part it was slow going, the route they were taking circled around the heaviest concentrations of Fiend patrols, traveled along the foot of the mountains and then back into Fiend territory. Sometimes the two were able to keep up a quick jog, but most of the time they were forced to slowly crawl on their bellies through the parched scrub and sand, pushing their rifle bags in front of them and keeping their heads down, all to avoid a Fiend patrol or the unwanted attention of a Cazador swarm.

It was sweaty and dirty work, but they reached the outskirts of Violet's camp, a labyrinth of wrecked campers and shipping containers, undetected. They worked quickly now, the night was fading away and with it the cover of darkness. The two men got set up on the roof of a gas station near the Fiend's camp. Courier unzipped the rifle bag and gently eased the sniper rifle out of its protective sheath.

"Normally that's my job," Boone muttered.

Courier cracked a grin, "Your weapon," he handed Boone a pair of binoculars, "Spotter."

"Next time I get to shoot something." His companion grumbled. He took the binoculars and started scanning the camp while Courier slung the rifle bag under his gun to act as a rest. "Alright, you've got a bit of wind coming from the northeast, nothing major, just a light breeze."

Courier nodded and peered through the scope. The night suddenly brightened as the low-light scope worked its techno magic. A floating red crosshair rested in the center of the scope.

"I don't suppose Violet would be nice enough to sit out in the open on a cold night like this?" He murmured.

"Nothing but a couple of dogs walking the perimeter," Boone reported, "she's probably holed up for the night, plan B?"

"Much as I hate cruelty to animals, yes, plan B." Courier swiveled the scope until the crosshairs floated a centimeter in front of a guard dog shuffling along the outer perimeter of the camp.

He squeezed the trigger.

His rifle could fire .308 cartridges at a velocity of eight hundred meters per second. The distance between him and the dog was considerably shorter than that. The slug erupted from the barrel and transfixed the dog through the upper portion of its skull before his rifle had even finished recoiling. There was no yelp, no bark of surprise. The dog simply dropped like a sack and there was only a soft _pfft_ as the bullet shot through its skull and tore into the sand.

Another scraggly looking mutt came trotting over, puzzled as to why its compatriot had stopped moving. It had been trained to react to big humans with loud boom-sticks and angry voices, things that it could smell and see and hear and bite and tear. But it couldn't see Courier, it heard no loud gunshot, and another trigger squeeze later, it didn't matter.

This wasn't sniping; it was shooting fish in a barrel. There was nothing sporting about this, nothing humane. It wasn't the dogs' faults that they'd been raised to be nothing more than rabid killers by an equally rabid woman, but the fact was they were killers now. They would happily tear Courier to shreds if he got within ten feet of their beloved master. So he shot them all. Boone would find one isolated from the rest and he would move the gun and pull the trigger. Five shots later it was all over. He swapped out magazines while Boone gave the area a last look over. Seven shots, seven dogs.

"All clear."

Courier nodded and put aside the sniper rifle, "Alright, stay here and keep an eye on things." Last thing they needed was getting bushwacked by a Fiend patrol. Boone nodded and sidled over to the sniper rifle, resting the stock against his shoulder.

Courier made sure his pistol was snug in its holster and the combat knife was secured to his vest then he scrambled over the roof of the gas station. Dropping the last ten feet, he hit the ground running.

His boots crunched quietly on the shifting ground, overhead the stars were bright and the night was cold. Courier ran close to the ground, back hunched over, head held low, a pale ghost on the grayed night sand. Despite the awkward posture of his run, his body felt no strain, and his breathing was a steady whisper of inhaling and exhaling a ghostly mist that wreathed his pale gray mask.

Courier may not have had any concrete memory of his life before that gritty, cold Mojave grave but there was one thing he knew for sure.

He had been built for this.

He passed the still warm corpses of Violet's unfortunate mutts, sticking to the shadows of the rusted metal heaps, working his way deeper into the Fiend's maze. Courier came out into a small clearing in the junk heap where an off-white rusted trailer gathered decay. There was a still smoldering cook-fire and several pieces of raw-red meat that hadn't come from a Brahmin.

Violet sure didn't waste the bodies of the people she killed.

Moving cautiously now, Courier slowly crouched down next to the door-less hole in the trailer. There were no lights on inside, but he could hear the soft rustle of a person breathing in deep sleep.

Courier quietly slid the knife out of its sheath; the matte-black blade seemed to absorb the scant natural light of the faded moon high above him. He stepped into the trailer, lightly distributing his weight so the rusted shocks beneath the trailer wouldn't let loose a treacherous squeal.

There was a blown out window to his left and a small raised portion in front of him covered in rags. Empty bottles and dark red splotches were everywhere and the place stank of unwashed bodies and dog fur. In the far corner a pile of rags and blankets had been slung together to form some crude bedding. Violet lay curled up on the bedding. Her chest rose and fell softly, completely unaware of the assassin in her room.

Courier extended the silenced hand-gun until it came to rest directed at her head. The NCR wanted recognizable heads for the bounty, so be it. The front part of her face would still be recognizable. At this range the bullet would punch straight and true through the bone of the skull, leaving a small hole at the entry point and then the hollow-point would collapse into a pattern of metal shards that would rip through the gray matter of the brain, and out the other side. The sound would be negligible and death would be instantaneous. All he had to do was squeeze the trigger.

Yet he hesitated.

In her sleep, curled up as she was, with a lock of hair across her serene face, Violet seemed far from the psychotic killer she was in real-life. Unbidden, questions rose to his mind. What had made her like this, had she been born this way or had life turned Violet into a monster?

_Enough,_ he thought, disturbed at this. He'd seen the evidence of her activities, she was no saint, the only question was why he should care at all.

There came a hard click-clack of nails on metal from behind him, and a low, deep growl. In his mind, Courier allowed a single thought.

_Damn._

That's when things went to Hell.

He spun around, whipping the pistol to sight in on the new target and a hundred pounds of angry mutt slammed into his chest, knocking Courier to the floor. The pistol skittered away out of reach and the powerful jaws of the eighth guard dog rumbled inches from his throat. It had been trained to go for the kill and this time was no different, but its victim wasn't willing to die yet. Courier twisted and instead of sinking her teeth into his neck, the dog caught his arm. She bit down, the force in her jaws easily piercing the clothing and latching onto the limb with a bone-crushing force, but the dog forgot one thing.

Courier still had his knife.

The steel blade flashed once and the low growling died off into a yelp as the combat knife sank deep into the dog's throat. Her grip on his arm loosened and with a growl of his own, Courier threw the dead weight off him, the action sending a fresh wave of pain radiating up his arm. He stumbled back to his feet, ready to finish the job, and paused.

Violet stood in the shadows at the end of the camper, her hair was tousled but her eyes glared with a rabid malevolence at him. She was out of the range of his knife and the shotgun in her hand made it clear he wouldn't have the opportunity to get close. Standing there with blood streaming down his crippled right arm, Courier felt a tingle slither up his spine, a sensation brought on by the realization that he wasn't going to be walking away from this.

"Violetta," she said suddenly gesturing at the still warm carcass by Courier's feet, "That was her name. You're going to fucking pay for that."

_You're going to die. _His mind whispered.

_Shut up._ He told it.

He closed his eyes. He relaxed his grip on the knife.

Inhale.

Time didn't slow, only his perception of it.

Exhale.

His eyes opened. His left arm flowed back, past his head, his hand rolled the knife around, grasped it by the blade, settling into a throwing position. Violet snarled and reacted, taking a half step forward, raising the shotgun, barrel shining in the moonlight.

There was a soft whisper of wind, and from the blown out window there came an even softer _pfft_. The bullet impacted, blood blossomed on Violet's trigger hand, her shriek of pain deafening, her movement stalled.

She looked up with hate-filled eyes, mouth opened for one last curse-

-and then muted as Courier's knife flashed through the air and transfixed the Fiend through the throat.

Death was not instantaneous and even as she collapsed against the wall and choked on her own blood, Violet tried with the last of her will to pull the trigger, but strong hands seized her, prying her weakened fingers easily from the trigger. She retaliated by sinking her claw like nails deeply into the torn flesh of Courier's arm. Courier was aware of her actions, and aware of his weakening limb but he felt no pain. Pain would come later, if there even was a later. He grasped the hilt of the knife and twisted it sharply, severing several major arteries. It was part mercy-killing and part brutal survival instincts.

Violet shuddered and let out almost a long, gentle sigh as the massive blood-loss finally did its job and drained the fight from her.

Then, when the last spark had gone from her eyes, Courier released the body and leaned back, feeling oddly tired. His mind seemed to be purely on autopilot as he staggered to his feet and collected his gun and dressed his broken arm with some rags to stop the bleeding.

The sound of shifting sand made him look up to see Boone stepping into the trailer.

"Nice shot." Courier said, "Why her hand?"

Boone shrugged, "Only part I could see from the window." Hitting a target as small as a hand from a couple hundred yards away probably wasn't even a challenge for the ex-NCR sniper. "We done here?" He asked.

"One thing left."

"What's that."

Courier nursed his injured arm and stifled a wince, "Leave a message."

* * *

Colonel Hsu was roused from sleep by a knocking on his door. "Yes?" He called out.

"Begging your pardon Colonel, but the CO on sentry duty radioed in about a disturbance over in Fiend territory, said you'd want to see this for yourself."

"Which CO"

"Captain Curtis."

_Damn,_ and just when it'd started to seem like he'd get a solid five hours of sleep in after all. But Colonel Hsu's officers were well trained and if they said there was a disturbance and that the Colonel would want to see it, then there were two facts.

There was a disturbance, and the Colonel would want to see this.

He kicked off the thin blanket and rolled off the slightly thicker mattress. Hsu was half-way dressed when the first part of the message sank in.

Something was going down in the Fiend camps.

There were fifty possible reasons for something like that, from drug-crazed gang members going off the deep end and starting a fight, to Raiders hitting a caravan unfortunate to have blundered into Fiend territory but somehow, Hsu's thoughts instantly leapt to the quiet man of few words with the battered hat and a Grim Reaper's stare.

He threw on his coat and he was out the door, the two MPs assigned as his guards fell into step beside him.

"Where?" He asked.

"North Wall sir," one of them, Sergeant Hawkins, replied. Together, the three made their way through the terminal, across the vast expanse of cracked concrete and up the stairs to the thick walls of the camp. Outside, Hsu could faintly hear a deep rumble, almost like the crack of lightning.

Hsu was greeted to a curious sight. Practically half the camp was crammed on the northern walls, some had binoculars, others, like sharpshooters of the NCR's First Recon were using the scopes of their weapons but all eyes were fixed on something on the horizon.

Captain Curtis was standing at the rampart, one foot on the stepping block and binoculars clenched to his face. He turned and saluted when he saw Hsu, "Colonel."

"At ease, Captain." Hsu joined him at the ramparts, "What do you have for me?"

Curtis shook his head in bewilderment, "See for yourself, sir," and handed the binoculars to Hsu.

Hsu raised the binoculars to his eyes and let out a quiet breath, "Sweet Mary…"

Violet's camp was on fire. Flames leaped and pirouetted from the rusted metal walls, glowing brightly against the back-drop of the night sky. Sections of the camp, those made from less durable material, collapsed in a shower of sparks and everywhere thick oily smoke rose up into the sky.

There was a bright, blinding flair of smog tinged light and a deep reverberating boom as a rusted fusion cell exploded. The wall it had been left against was literally ripped out and as if that had been a signal, more and more explosions ripped across the compound as the detonated cell set off a chain reaction, scattering metal and radiation high into the air.

Dimly, the Colonel could hear shouts and cries drifting in the wind as the other Fiends realized some major shit was going down at their compatriot's camp… and they realized something was very, very wrong.

The lightshow lasted for only a few minutes, but when the last explosion faded away into silence, nothing remained of Violet's lair. The blood-soaked walls and walkways of her camp were nothing more than twisted, smoldering scrap metal, the ground gouged with deep craters that still smoked with intense heat.

Whatever Courier had done, he had left no structure standing, nothing left for the other Fiends to salvage. He had done what countless bounty hunters and NCR volunteers could not. Scariest of all, the man had accomplished it in just one night. As he stared at the carnage of what had once been a greatly feared and ruthless Raider's home, Colonel Hsu felt a cold wave run through his spine.

The Colonel wondered just what nightmare from Hell he had unleashed on the Fiends.

* * *

_A/N: Wow, it's been forever since I've updated one of these. This chapter's been a bugger to write, but the hardest part's just been finding time to sit down and write this. As always feel free to give me a rundown on the good, the bad, and the ugly of this chapter. _

_Thanks and with any luck next update won't take a few months._


	10. Aftermath

The sun rose red in the morning, a scarlet spray of crimson light cresting over the eastern mountains and painting the clouds overhead with rays of pure gold. It was a beautiful sunrise, a once in a decade vista that would inspire a singer or make a writer pick up his pen to craft a soul-touching piece of art.

Doctor Karen Usanagi didn't even notice it.

At the moment, she was arm deep in gore and trying to clamp a gushing artery while Frank, one of the clinic guards struggled to hold down the screaming young NCR soldier (sixteen, that's not a man, that's a boy, her mind said) on the operating table.

He'd been the farthest from the mine when his patrol accidentally tripped it. A couple of locals had brought him in. He wore only one boot, the other was somewhere in the city ruins along with most of his lower leg. Normally he'd have bled out in minutes but the good samaritans who'd found him had a few shots of stimpacks that had kept him alive long enough to be handed off at the New Vegas Medical Clinic.

Now it was up to her to save his life but she was having a bitch of a time finding the severed artery with him bucking around like a stung Bighorner. Usanagi took a precious moment to wipe clean her blood splattered face-shield. "Mike!" Her normally soft-spoken voice rang out loud and sharp, the envy of any drill sergeant "Mike, where's that Med-X?"

An IV line, hell even a bag of cryo-freezed blood that was only two hundred years past expiration had been hooked up to him but the kid was losing blood faster than they could pump it in. "Mike!"

Feet stumbled on the tiled floor and her assistant rushed into the O.R. One of the new guys fresh from the Followers outpost on the Strip, he hadn't cracked yet, thank god. He had a surgical mask wrapped around his mouth, once disposable in pre-War times, now worth a small fortune.

"Here, doctor." If his voice shook a little, his hand was steady as he administered the drug straight into the IV line.

The screams continued for another minute before the kid's baby blue eyes grew glassy with morphine. The pain dwindled away to a soft sigh as the young man went limp. With Mike's help she finally located the damn artery and clamped it off. If he was lucky, the kid might even be able to keep the rest of his leg.

The plastic covering rustled as one of the Clinic's guards poked his head through. "Doc you got some more patients out front."

_It never rains but it pours._

* * *

Take away two hundred years of neglect and the front lobby of the New Vegas Medical Clinic looked like any other waiting room. There were a row of chairs along one cracked plaster wall and a small reading table covered with magazines. A couple of local patients clustered around a drink machine in the corner, waiting their turns. If not for the guard armed with a suspicious glare and a sawn off shotgun, the lobby would have been very cozy. Well that and the screams.

Courier fidgeted as a particularly bloodcurdling screech echoed down the corridor. He was discovering (or perhaps remembering) that he had an innate dislike of hospitals. "What the hell is that?" He asked.

Boone looked up, "I'd say a landmine vic."

For a moment morbid curiosity overcame disbelief. "How can you tell?"

"On the frontline it's standard practice for the NCR to mine the approaches to camp. Doesn't stop the Legion from trying to slip through." The sniper scooped up an edition of _Guns & Bullets_ and started flipping through the pages, "If the mines don't kill them all, it's more economical to have snipers pick off the wounded than send troops through the minefield."

"Meaning you."

Boone nodded, an almost pleasant smile drifting to his face, "It might be too easy to headshot a guy trying to crawl around on two stumps, but dead legion's still dead legion."

The plastic flaps separating the rest of the clinic from the lobby rustled. A young woman with pretty Asian features came through and smiled politely, "Next?" she queried. Her reassuring demeanor did nothing to dispel the blood spattered lab coat she was wearing. "Billy?" She asked, glancing at an older man resting in a chair.

Billy's face blanched, "Uh…my cough's feeling better Doc."

Courier nodded approvingly "Smart man."

The doctor's smile didn't dim as she worked her way down the list, "Alright then…Courier?"

"If I'm not back in thirty minutes come in guns blazing." Courier muttered as he stood up.

Boone was unsympathetic, "Get your ass in there."

* * *

The ensuing visit took less than Courier's deadline and was surprisingly pain-free. A couple hundred caps bought him the use of the Clinic's Mark I auto-doc, a medical marvel consisting of four autonomous arms festooned with surgical implements attached to a boxy central unit with a CRT control panel attached to its side. Once he rested his arm in the padded operating cradle the device whirred to life. Scalpel-tipped limbs sliced away the shredded cloth around the limb and a needle filled with a small dose of Med-X injected a local anesthetic in the limb. Another limb whirred across the broken arm with a strange device that shined a blue light into the skin. In a matter of minutes Courier's arm went from a mangled mess to something approaching normal.

"You've fractured the arm in several places." Doctor Usanagi explained tapping at the plasma screen of the Auto-Doc, to reveal a ghostly X-ray view of the limb in question. "The Auto Doc's realigned them and injected your body with meds to help the bone and muscle re-knit but that limb's still going to be delicate for a couple days."

"But I can still use it, correct?" Courier flexed his arm, putting it through a range of motions.

Usanagi grabbed his arm in a gentle but firm grip and guided it back to the table. "Sure…if you don't mind ripping the fresh muscle from your baby bones. Your arm's fixed but it's not at one hundred percent. Rest the arm and give the meds time to do their job or else you'll be right back here before the day's done."

The sour look on the patient's face could have curdled milk, "How long?"

"At least a week."

"A _week_?" He asked, incredulous. That was a lifetime as far as the Wasteland was concerned. "Can't you make it go any faster?"

"Look, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker, and before you get any bright ideas about using that arm I'm going to mix up some plaster for it, just to remove the temptation."

Courier sighed.

* * *

"How's the arm?"

Courier looked down at the plaster wrapped gauntlet of his right arm

"Itches like crazy." He replied.

The ceiling fan listlessly slugged through the air, pushing a tiny current around that did little to alleviate the stifling heat inside Hsu's office. It was later in the day, Courier had dropped off Violet's head and now the colonel wanted a little chat with Courier.

Colonel Hsu poured himself another glass of whiskey, "I take it things got a little rough?" That was probably putting it mildly.

"I was arrogant." Courier said flatly, "Too cocky, I rushed the job, didn't even scout it out first, and I made a greenhorn's mistake."

"Which was?"

_I felt empathy_, his mind thought.

"I failed to realize that the difference between seven and eight is pretty damn important." His mouth answered.

The colonel glanced at him, "You came away with a broken arm, most people aren't lucky enough to survive a mistake like that."

Courier shook his head, "Wasn't luck." _Lady Luck is a cold-hearted bitch_, _You lean on her too much and one day she'll leave you cold and limp in a ditch._ The words whispered in the back of his mind, another phantom memory floating to the top of his damaged mind.

"I had Boone on a rooftop with a sniper rifle," he shrugged, "probably the only thing I did do right."

Hsu grimaced, one edge of his mouth turning down in a sign of disapproval. No, the colonel didn't much care for ex-NCR soldiers, even if they still killed Legion. He swirled the chipped glass of whiskey listlessly.

"Well you kicked over the ant-hill, that's for sure." _That_ at least brought a smile to his face. "1st Recon's been spotting a lot of messengers running between the camps. News of the Bitch's demise has spread like wildfire."

"What are the other chiefs doing?"

"Well Cook-Cook's been doing his Grognak the Barbarian act; lots of chest pumping and promising to barbecue and chow on whoever did the deed. I think the sunnuva bitch is actually enjoying all the excitement."

"And Nephi?"

"Driver Nephi's being more…cautious. He's offering caps and extra drugs to anyone who can bring him the perp's head, but aside from that, he's staying bunkered up in his ruins along with the bulk of his men."

"He might actually be intelligent," Courier thought about it and shrugged, "It could be hard to coax him out of his hole."

Hsu leaned back, "There's still a Legion mole on the loose as well."

"Not my problem."

"Maybe, but that mole represents a more serious threat than some chem-addled Wasters. Killing the Fiend bosses is a start but if we're going to retake control-"

"You seem to have me confused for a patriot, Hsu." Courier interrupted, "I couldn't care less if the Legion burned down every one of these flea infested buildings."

"These flea-infested buildings are my people." Hsu said dryly.

"Exactly, _your_ people, not mine. Find someone else to be your hero." Courier rested his hat back on his head and stood up, making it clear this meeting was over.

Apparently Hsu didn't get it. "You can't be a lone wolf forever Courier. Sooner or later you'll have to pick a side."

"Two more heads, Hsu, then I'm gone."

The door swung shut with a finality. Hsu drummed his fingers on the weathered wood of the desk. He hadn't expected Courier to be ecstatic about mole-hunting, but he figured the man could have seen the strategic rewards of depriving the Fiends of their information flow. No, he realized, Courier understood just how valuable the information was. He just didn't want to do any more dancing for the NCR than he had to.

Although, maybe Hsu could find someone else who'd be willing to help…

* * *

"Let me get this straight." Veronica said slowly, "You want me to help you track down and find a Legion spy operating undercover inside your very own, very secure, camp?"

"Yes."

She shook her head, "Why?"

Hsu steepled his fingers. "One, you're a new arrival, which means people don't know you yet, you're a blank slate, an enigma. Two, a sweet-faced young lady like yourself is more likely to get answers than one of my troopers."

"What about Courier? I'm sure he can be sweet and innocent acting if he tries really hard."

Hsu didn't even say a word, he just cocked an eyebrow.

Veronica frowned. "Alright, that'd be like putting a fluffy pink collar on a Nightstalker."

Although the hilarity of the end result might just be worth the risk of getting her head chewed off.

"Maybe not my choice of words, but the same sentiment. Courier's a very capable man but this requires-"

"Tact, yeah I get it. Still, like you said, I'm a newcomer. For all you know I could be part of this little mole network."

"You could," Hsu allowed, "but I know your 'family'. Your people have little love for the NCR, but they have even less love for the Legion. It's doubtful a Brotherhood Scribe would work with them."

Veronica winced, "That obvious, huh?"

"Even if you wear a robe, you're too well-groomed and educated to be a Waster. You have an insatiable curiosity for technology and the Brotherhood's one of the few factions I know of with the technical know-how to keep a pneumatic powered fist in working condition."

"How deductive of you, Holmes."

Hsu blinked, "What?"

Veronica sighed, she'd forgotten just how rare books were top-side.

"Forget about it."

The colonel nodded, "So, will you help?"

Veronica thought about it, on the surface, the idea was ludicrous. Despite the colonel's window-dressing the Brotherhood of Steel and the NCR were not on buddy-buddy terms. The NCR were capitalistic pigs who liked to bully the little tribes into giving them what they wanted, and they had the gall to preach about defending "freedom".

Still, she was tired of sitting around the camp doing nothing but wrench-jockey repairs and fending off come-hithers from the lonely boys in uniform, and the girls were neither lonely nor her type. And much as Veronica loved antagonizing the NCR, in a three-way between fascist Legion, psychotic Fiends, and themselves, the NCR were the least of three evils for the people living in the Mojave.

And did she mention she was bored?

"Alright," Veronica nodded, "I'll do it, on one condition."

"Name it."

She smirked, "I want a magnifying glass and a deerstalker cap"

Colonel Hsu stared at her for a minute. "Why would you need a magnifying glass?"

_And another witty cultural reference bites the dust. _Veronica sighed, "One of these days I'm really going to have to introduce you to Arthur Conan Doyle."

* * *

Nephi called his contact that night. There was a link between the Fiend bosses and the Legion. Legion agents would tell the Fiends where NCR patrols would be, all the Fiends had to do was set up the ambush. Nephi had even been supplied with a radio that was a direct line to a top _Frumentarius _(who, he didn't know, the Legion fuckers played their cards close to their chests) working undercover at Camp McCarran. That didn't mean the two sides were cozy. The Legion looked down on the Fiends,

Nephi knew they saw them as little more than undisciplined animals. For his part, Nephi didn't trust them as far as he could kick their asses. He doubted very much that if the Legion crossed the river and won the dam, they'd be willing to leave the Fiends be.

_The enemy of my enemy is not my friend; he's just one more fucker who could shank me in the ass._

Still the NCR was the present threat; the Legion was bad shit for another day. Although considering what had happened last night, that bad shit day might be very close indeed.

Just thinking about what had happened to Violet made his nerves itch. Fiends didn't lead cozy lives, those that managed to dodge the NCR's bullets usually wound up dead from over-dose. Still, Violet had been _tough_. She'd been fucked-up batshit insane and more than one well equipped, well trained bounty hunter had wound up feeding her and her canines.

And now?

The cigarette slipped from his fumbling fingers. "Shit." He muttered. _Keep it together, Driver._

He'd sent Zippo and Trace to Violet's compound, two Fiends who could hold their guts when it came to raping, murdering, and pillaging. They'd come back pasty-faced and trembling, describing all kinds of shit. Violet's fortress compound reduced to flattened scrap metal, her guard dogs, those rabid bitches that could tear a Deathclaw apart (and he'd seen them do it once) scattered across the sands, put down with a single shot to the head. In the middle of all the devastation, the Bitch Queen herself, lying naked in the baking sun, now little more than food for the Cazadors. Well most of her anyway.

Someone had taken her head.

_Probably NCR_, he thought, hell, it'd probably been a whole team of their spooks, the Rangers in the damn trench-coats and black armor, he couldn't imagine anything less taking down Violet.

Except he hadn't heard any gunfire last night, and his contact hadn't said anything about the NCR sending fucking black-ops to knock off the Fiends.

He'd tried explaining his worries to Cook-Cook, the other Fiend boss, but the dumb fuck had just laughed him off. Stupid idiot thought a Flamer and metal armor was the answer to any problem. He'd only lasted this long as a boss because he was a Buffout enhanced, Psycho fueled sadistic freak of nature.

Nephi on the other hand, had survived by being smart. He'd avoided unnecessary risks and unlike Cook-Cook, he'd actually studied his enemies instead of just trying to charbroil them.

Only problem was, he had to know who his fucking enemy was. He glanced at the cracked lens of the centuries old atomic watch. At exactly ten p.m., the radio in his hands crackled to life.

"I thought we had a deal you boy-cunt!" Nephi hissed, "Thought you were supposed to let us know when the NCR was sending a _fucking spook squad _after us."

The voice on the other end was cold and unapologetic, _"You knew there would be repercussions, you can't expect to shake the Cazador nest and not get stung."_

Smug bastard.

"Yes," he snarled, spit spraying in the air, "But there's a difference between dodging some farm-boy militia's bullets and having your throat sliced in your sleep by _fucking Rangers_!"

"_It wasn't Rangers." _The voice informed him.

"The Hell did you say?"

"_It wasn't Rangers."_ The voice paused, curious, _"Do I need to use smaller words?"_

"Motherfucker" Nephi retorted, "How the hell do you know?"

"_It's my job." _There was a hint of smugness in the voice. _"There wasn't a ranger anywhere near your compatriot's camp. A two-man team hit the place. We didn't warn you because we didn't know. The Colonel played it close to his chest on this one. He's starting to get paranoid…good for him."_

"Yeah, yeah he's a regular jackass. You got a name on the dead-meat who killed Vi?"

"_His name is Courier."_

* * *

_A/N: And after being MIA for seven monthes Tobias is alive! I can't believe it took me this long to update, sorry for the long wait guys. I'm not going to make any promises for the next update (because I still have to update three other stories and we're approaching the end of the school year) but it won't be as long a hiatus as it was this time. You guys know the drill, read, review, tell me what you liked, what you hated, etc._


End file.
